Battlestar Titanica
by PhynxLegion
Summary: A lost Battlestar is suddenly thrust into the hands of the surviving few. Is it salvation or a curse? Will the arrival of an ancient alien ship unbalance their fragile survival? NOTE: This is now a complete story, and I want to thank everyone who supported me. Furthermore I have updated the story fixing some plot issues.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Jumping into the shipyards near Tauron, the four ships of the mobile engineering group Red Demeter dock alongside the newly launched destroyer Achilles. Bristling with dozens of railguns, defensive batteries, and missile bays, the destroyer was meant to compliment the battlestar by offering protection against the hordes of enemy fighters and allowing the battlestar to go head to head against opposing capital ships. Major Myosha Huron coordinates the docking of the remaining ships and stands at the controls as the Lieutenant Colonel Styles excuses himself. Flipping her short chestnut hair off her brow, she raises the remaining ships in her group and waits for each to notify her that they are docked. With nearly 3500 personnel spread out in 4 small specialty freighters and escorts, their military convoy could easily be confused for a cheap salvage company. Lacking a magnificent fighter compliment or contingents of marines, 90% of their firearms were always secured in the armories. With three quarters of their crew maintenance or engineers, the vast majority of them were lying around in their bunks or working off their frustration in the gym. An eighteen month mission which was completed in six, everyone's enthusiasm for a accomplishing the impossible left most drained and exhausted. As the last ship confirms their docking, Myosha signals the captain in his quarters and has her bridge crew stand down. From her right at the communications station, a meager console and chair alongside four other stations, Lieutenant Brea Lamos shakes her head and rolls her eyes as she speaks.

"Colonel Styles wants to see you in his quarters. He says not to release anyone on leave, 'cause we're not staying long. I'll pass that on to the convoy."

With a weighted nod, Myosha removes her headset and strides towards the door. Over her shoulder she throws out to her navigator Captain Braka.

"Caleb, you have the bridge until I return. Styles will want to keep everyone on their toes, so run drills…like something for fast deployment. I'll leave that to your discretion. He'll love to hear that. It's probably why he's summoning for me."

Nodding, a crisp brown-haired officer rises and takes Myosha's place at the helm. Out of place among the rough and grizzled flight deck crew, he carries a commanding and calming aura even with the simplest of tasks.

"Aye Major."

Leaving the bridge, Myosha travels fifty feet down the corridor and smacks the door panel. Many moments later, the captain releases the door, and it slides open. With his shirt in his hands, he sneers as if she's supposed to be impressed with his middle-aged build laced with years with excessive consumption. Repressing her disgust and disdain, she waits patiently at the door despite his advances and motioning to enter. Holding up a glass of whisky, she shakes her head and refuses to accept the liquor. Reading his anger flashing across his face, she adjusts her stance and holds her ground. Downing the glass in two gulps, he slams down the glass and throws his shirt on.

"Well you and everyone else can stay on board while I go and confer with command on where they want us to take our salvage. We're still on a communications blackout, so no unofficial comm-traffic until further notice. Run emergency drills 'til I get back and cargo processing is complete. We're only taking on a few thousand tons of supplies and munitions to Caprica. Everything is low priority but we're the only ship heading there for a few days, and they're tired of holding it in their secure zone. They're putting it all on the Rhea and Coeus, and we're dropping off our empties to make room. That's why I had us rearrange everything before we left. I don't want to be here any longer than we have to."

Taking out her data reader, Myosha verifies the manifest the station sent, and notes a pallet ready for their ship.

Clearing her throat, Myosha checks off the cargo.

"There's a mail and private parcel pallet ready for us to take on?"

Nodding the captain continues.

"Oh yah, that too. No one is to leave the ship, and no one calls home. I'll be back in three hours. Got it?"

With a heavy sigh, Myosha nods.

"Aye. I'm running emergency departure drills, nothing too extreme, but we are spinning up our FTL. It won't put excessive wear on it if you're only going to be a few hours."

She suppresses her tongue thinking he should only need two minutes with his Tauron whore. Despite having a wife and four kids on Caprica, he frequented the Tarnished Horn every time he came through this port. It was hardly a secret, and she even believed his wife had her own lover or two to counter his frequent tours away from home. Lavishing his lovers and family in gifts, they all got what they wanted from him in the end. Stepping aside as he exists, she follows a step behind him as he goes to the cargo bay. With the large cargo bay door swung wide, he strides through as they take off the empty cargo bins and make room for the mail pallet.

"Good work, keep it up until I return."

Without looking back, he strides through the bay door and disappears into the station. With nothing else to do, she turns swiftly and returns to the bridge. With the bridge buzzing in activity, she settles into the command chair and begins reviewing the logs. Reading the emotions of her crewmates, she nods to each showing her compassion for the uselessness of the drills. Noticing their new recruit on the chatterbox, one of the many wireless communication systems on board, she nods to the person on the other line and signs off. Ensign Hera Guper, being unfortunate enough to get the worst assignment draw out of the academy, took the rear-end assignment of the fleet far better than Myosha would have in her boots. Caleb neatly marches to her side and pivot's smartly into place.

"Major, everything is in order. I've chose the Aeneid Scenario. Its rather obscure, and no one ever runs that one."

Myosha raises her dark eyebrow in surprise.

"A massive surprise attack by superior forces, with insufficient time to mount a coordinated response? Okay…I did say it was your discretion, but you should have chosen something more practical or likely, but I'm fine with that. The strange and unusual will break up the monotony of these drills. Who was Ensign Guper talking to on the comm?"

Nodding crisply, he inhales softly before speaking.

"I know the XO on the Achilles next door. She's a friend of the family, known her since I was in grade school. She's only a few years older than me, and we kept in touch. She called us; and I mentioned we were running drills, and she thought it would be great opportunity to coordinate between her crew and ours. She says they have very little practice in fleet ops with their new ship, so I gave her our emergency escape coordinates. I imagined it would be nice for our convoy to feel like members of the fleet, rather than trash haulers."

Unable to suppress her chuckle, she nods in approval.

"Remind me to never piss off anyone in your family. On the bright side, once they release the news of our salvage and recovery, I think promotions are in order all around. I gave all of you high marks in your FITREPs. Now I imagine the captain will find some reason to keep me below him…probably his eternal desire to get me into his bunk."

Myosha makes a gagging motion off the side of her chair in disgust, making the bridge erupt in a round of laughter and giggles, and Myosha suspends her foolery, realizing her conversation was far more public than she intended. Being the only female Caprican in the convoy, she had to dodge and endure his never-ending advances. Though he had no issues retaining whores and one-night stands with any woman with a pulse, he claimed to only be interested in "pure" girls of Caprican descent.

Two hours into their drills, Myosha received word that the Rhea was buttoned up and ready to depart. With the last ship completely refueled and supplied, Myosha notes the time in her logs, and orders the final portion of their drill. With the bulkhead airlocks sealed, she runs the checklists for departure. With every previous drill ending before this point, she signals the Achilles as if she's the flag ship. The scenario completes with numerous failures on both sides, and Myosha gives the reigns to the Achilles to show her people how it's done.

Forty-five minutes in their last drill, as they are ending, sirens erupt and they look at each other in confusion. As they spin around checking the systems, Lieutenant Benders, the mousey and awkward blonde tactical officer screams out.

"DRADIS contact! Two unidentified capital ships just jumped in, and are on an attack angle to the docks! Missile launch! By the Gods! Radiological alarms! We got incoming nukes! This is not a drill!"

Ensign Guper yells out in terror followed by Lieutenant Bender's terrified voice.

"The station's computers are offline! We've lost release functions, we can't undock!"

"Missile impact in 45 seconds!"

Besieged by the reports, Myosha's eyes shoot every direction trying to process the situation. In the recesses of her mind, Myosha can't believe the words bursting out from her mouth.

"Tell me the FTL is still spun-up."

Seeing a nod from the beleaguered tactical officer, she signals Caleb on the wireless with the Achilles and the convoy before screaming out her fateful command.

"Jump!"

As Lieutenant Colonel Styles casually strolls towards the docks with his arms filled with gifts and souvenirs from the station, he can't understand why the claxons are screaming. As everyone is scrambling around him, he is suddenly overcome with the imminent danger to the station. Reaching an observation portal below his ship the Aporia, the captain witness the trails of hundreds of missiles inbound from the two unknown ships. Taking a deep breath he imagines making the run to his ship in no more than a minute, but his heart stops as his convoy and nearby destroyer suddenly disappear in a flash allowing the missiles to pass unhindered into the station moments later.

Arriving only hundreds of feet apart, the five ships carefully spread out and recover. After an hour of cross-communication, Commander Doneatha Florus has Myosha and Caleb join her on the Achilles. A striking contrast to the convoy, the Achilles was everything that the Aporia was not. It was impeccably clean, fully functional, and had the entire crew in uniform per colonial regulations. After a short informal introduction, she leads them to the conference room, and sits down. The stress of their departure had taken a toll even for the seasoned crew. Taking a deep breath, Commander Florus begins.

"It took us 45 minutes to reboot our systems and clear out the viruses our attackers infected us with. Our people are making adjustments to the computer system to eliminate that vulnerability, but it is a major design flaw. They were able to completely infiltrate the command structure and practically forced the system to vent the atmosphere from the ship. We're yanking out all of our wireless nodes, and pulling the circuit breakers on the ones we can't forcibly remove. I understand you didn't have that problem?"

Shaking her head, Myosha reviews her logs.

"We had an attempt to access our system, but most of the wireless systems in our convoy simply don't work. Given enough time, they would have infected ours too. We haven't linked up to any networks in the past 6 months, we've been on assignment."

Nodding the captain sighs.

"Which brings me to my next question. Why here? It's obvious we're completely away from everything and everyone, but how did you pick this place? This was a red-line jump even for us."

She watches suspiciously as Myosha and Caleb share a nervous glare between themselves. Clearing her throat, she waits for Myosha to speak first.

"Our mission was a secret. About nine months ago, a report came in of a weird sighting. A lone battlestar. It was sighted adrift in the nebula nearby. It took us two months to locate it, and four to get it fully operational. It had a major computer failure along with environmental completely offline. A dozen lifeboats were missing, but we never found any of them. We got the boat back online, reformatted the computers, and got her into a stable position. We hid her deep in the nebula so that no one could find her until they wanted her."

Watching the commander shift uncomfortably in her chair, Myosha lets her loose-fitting uniform hide her rapid breathing and nervous sweat. She continues reluctantly.

"Our orders were hand-written. Someone was going to get a serious promotion for unveiling this find, and…no offence…we were hoping to get promoted off this frak'in convoy. Ironically, this frak'in convoy is the only reason we're still alive."

The commander, obviously relieved the mystery wasn't criminally worse, sighs and breathes out.

"Well, I've lost about a 125 various personnel from the attack. Caleb told me you have an excess of personnel…mechanics and engineers?" Seeing Myosha's heavy nod, she continues.

"Well, transfer about 200 to my ship, and we'll get them spun up on our procedures. Wait…you said that Battlestar was parked in the nebula. Is she fully ready? Can we use her?"

Shrugging Myosha thinks about her orders, and realizes the pointlessness to keeping to them anymore.

"All she lacks is a crew, Commander."

Commander Florus watches as Myosha hesitates getting into her bag. After several long minutes, she extracts a heavy mission folder and hands it over to the new ranking officer of her convoy.

"Commander Florus, I present to you one fully operational, completely restored, fully armed and ready Battlestar."

Opening up the metal case, she extracts original design diagrams, schematics, efficiency reports, and pictures. As her mouth hangs agape, Myosha takes a deep breath and belches out the specifics.

"She's a one-of-a-kind, experimental Galactica class. The predecessor of the Mercury class, she's like the Pegasus, except the notable differences. The two outer fighter bay pods do not retract, but a third pod mounted underneath her is. It's supposed to reduce the combat profile. She has 180 fighters on board, full weapon complement, minus nukes, and I didn't bother counting how many old raptors were still there. I know it got recorded, but I never saw the number. She is supposed to have a crew complement of 2300, and the food stores are only at 30%. Right now, we have a large pallet of stores bound for Caprica, our 12 remaining months of food stores, not to mention the 2800 excess crewmen that are just lying around."

Stunned into silence, the commander finally remembers to breathe and inhales sharply. Her hands brushes over the name of the ship laid out on the blueprints before her.

"You found the Titanica?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Leaving the convoy at the edge of the nebula, the Achilles lets eight raptors guide them into the navigational nightmare of the Lernaia Nebula. With horrific walls of dense dark matter and clouds of super-heated gas practically nullifying the DRADIS system, calling this area of space a nightmare was highly inadequate. With a raptor parking at the very outer sensor limit of the previous raptor, they make a lifeline back to the entrance, while steering deeper into the horrific abyss laid before them. Leaving behind their sixth raptor, the remaining pair veers sharply to the right and down towards an innocuous cloud of dust and gasses. As Commander Florus paces her bridge, she glances over her navigator's shoulder and notes nothing of interest on the scope from the cloud. As she starts to ask, Myosha grins and instructs the pilot to continue following them. After another twenty minutes, the Achilles drifts dangerously into the cloud. With scanners effectivity reduces to thousands of feet rather than thousands miles they crawl into the grey cloud.

Commander Florus had believed the cloud was mostly transparent until their bridge sunk into the mass. With the sensor range reduced to hundreds of feet, the raptors inch along for several minutes, until they turn abruptly and zero onto an invisible point ahead. As the Achilles approaches, DRADIS suddenly comes to life and a massive object lies a mere 600 feet ahead. Inching closer, Commander Florus orders a full stop and gives the bridge to Caleb's old friend. A brilliant redhead with radiant blue-green eyes, Dianna Themis towered over everyone as she rose from beside the navigator. Easily six feet tall, the Lieutenant Colonel had the presence her position required. Privately, the Captain knew Dianna was passed over command solely based on her refusal sit idly and muzzle her tongue to "stupidity." For this reason alone, she requested the brash young commander as her XO. Though her FITREP said she was a poor choice for the position, she excelled in tactics and procedures and was well versed in over a thousand years of military tactics and procedures. A voracious reader of military history text, she was everything Doneatha wanted in an XO. Seeing her attitude as a pet project, she knew she would make her Captain material before her tour was over.

Joining the commander in the raptor, Myosha sits in the rear as the rest of the space is filled with security. Armed excessively, she understood the caution. In full environmental gear, they lift off the pad and are joined by a second raptor filled with more security and deck crews. In less than a minute, they are entering the under belly flight deck. With the two outer pods closed tight with massive blast doors to keep the tons of dust and debris out, the rear door on the lower pod was the only entrance to the lost battlestar. With the pod only half extended, it was a tight fit to get the raptor inside without clipping the edges. Setting down inside, they file out and march directly to the elevators. Noticing the lack of power, Commander Florus realizes the trip to the bridge will be a nightmare at best. Discouraged, she begins looking for the stairs, only to have Myosha stop her. Leading her to the center elevator, Myosha opens the maintenance panel beside the elevator and flips a guarded switch up. The elevator suddenly comes to life, and the doors part to a lighted elevator.

The commander cannot shake a general eeriness, like some unseen force stalking their every move and action. All too aware that thousands of men and women died inside this ship, she couldn't believe that Myosha's teams never found a single body. With the hair standing up on the back of her neck, she resists the urge to turn around and look for the source. Leading the way, they fill the elevator and patiently ride it to the top. With still eight more floors to travel to reach the bridge, the engineers go to the rear to get the engines online, while everyone else goes forward to the bridge.

After a short eight minute jaunt up stair wells and across deserted corridors, the bridge of the sleeping Battlestar Titanica awakens as Commander Florus glides effortless into the pristine deck. As if on cue, the bridge suddenly flickers and comes to life with thousands of lights and indicators sparkling and churning with power. Myosha signals to everyone to get onto the floor, and she waits until everyone has sure footing before engineering turns on full power. With a final nod from the commander, Myosha gives the go-ahead and the ship lurches to life. Immediately the gravity plates come to life and everyone suddenly feels the full effects of artificial gravity wash over them. For those with a weak constitution, this surge of gravity often unbalances the stomach, and fortunately no one has to clean out their helmets afterwards. Despite a day passing onboard the ship, the ship was put into storage mode before Myosha left, uncertain when anyone would reclaim the vessel. To inhibit the development of frost when the ship cooled internally, the system was dried out and slowly lowered to freezing, per colonial guidelines.

As Commander Florus tries to push herself off the deck, in the corner of her eye she sees a hand reach down to help her up. Instinctively, she reaches out and takes it. With the strength of three pyramid players, the hand practically tears her arm out the socket helping her up. As she gets her footing she turns to thank the person, only to see no one standing near her. Spinning around, she notices that everyone is just getting to their feet, and starting to look around. Wide-eyed and hyper-aware, she instinctively begins barking out commands and orders environmental to come online. Shaking off her jitters, she is reassured about the ship as one by one, each system comes online. After ten minutes, the gauges give the green light for both oxygen and temperature, and she removes her helmet. Shaking off the freakish jitters from earlier, she sits at the command chair and begins studying the readouts as each system begins reporting how ready it is. Ordering the lower pod to fully extend, she turns to Myosha.

"I want you to reassign all your remaining personnel to the Titanica. Your transports have little to no armaments, and we can't afford to waste resources defending those vessels. Right now, this ship is our best hope for salvation. How well do you know the other captains of your convoy?"

Reluctantly Myosha nods as she replies.

"Really well. You don't see any use for our ships anymore?"

Shaking her head, Commander Florus sighs.

"I wish I could tell you otherwise. I do want to keep two of your best up with a skeleton crew, but I believe our best interests lie in supporting this battlestar. If we run into any significant forces, we don't stand a chance. I know of a few out of the way stockpiles we can hit that should have fuel and ammo dumps, but your freighters are just practice targets. Let's strip them down and get your people trained up on the Titanica's systems. After we get this boat out of the dust cloud, we can start the transfer. Let's sit down and work out how we can split our teams and not step on too many toes in the process."

With a crisp nod, Myosha salutes sharply and journeys down to the flight deck to begin the prickly process of abandoning their old and decrepit ships. As she prepares to depart, the greyish screen of dust is replaced with the contrasting spectacle of purples, reds, and greens of the nebula. With the Achilles pulling alongside the Titanica, the pair of ships park just outside the cloud and wait for the convoy to join them. Racing away, she follows the signals from the parked raptors and tries to plan her speech to her teams. Less than twelve hours earlier, she jokingly referred to the convoy as hers, but now she had that responsibility thrust onto her shoulders. As much as she hated Colonel Styles, she never wished him dead, nor to die in such a pitiful manner.

As she passes the third raptor, she is shocked to see her convoy plowing towards her at full speed, something they never did even with the buoys. As she opens up her comm channel, terror hits her seeing the first raptors leading the convoy. Signaling the Aporia, Myosha angrily screams.

"What the Frak are you all doing! Get back to your positions or we'll be lost in here!"

In a panic, Caleb replies.

"We got one of those big ships out there! They launched some fighters! I don't think they saw us, but we couldn't stay out there. We'd be sitting ducks!"

The rearmost raptor piloted by a wily Lieutenant Kosmos "Wild Tongue" Kemper heatedly defends their decision.

"I got two of those fighters following me! I think they're following my wake, because I can barely detect them on my DRADIS. They come in and out!"

Shaking her head, she drives them to full speed towards the parked ships. After five minutes, the ships nearly crash into each other as they slip past the Achilles and find a hiding place in the back. Backing into the dust cloud, each of the convoy makes a neat retreat and disappears off the DRADIS. After each ship is tucked away, the Titanica and Achilles return into the cloud and wait patiently as times passes.

Myosha sits at the glass conference table onboard the Titanica and stares endlessly at the crew roster from her convoy. The reassignment of engineers and maintenance crews was easy as most were dying to escape their confinement; but the reshaping of the bridge crews was becoming maddening. After three days, her only accomplishments were offloading the crews and supplies. With dozens of ships scanning the nebula, they discovered the dust could was their only hope for survival. Sending out a recon raptor, the ships' forward fuselage resembled the head of a Cylon, leading them to believe they were such. With overwhelming numbers, Commander Florus felt their best tactic was to lie in wait and depart when the best opportunity presented itself.

With impatience taking its toll, Colonel Themis plotted an escape route through the clouds of dust and debris but the scrapping of the Clotho and Coeus was still a day away. The two slowest and least armed ships was undoubtedly the best call, but it was one Myosha couldn't easily swallow. The dissection and salvage of her convoy made her sick to the stomach. Worse, not only was she given the task of ripping apart the bodies of her convoy, but the people who once lived and breathed within them. The deck crews were easy to spread out between the Titanica and the Achilles, but the command officers left Myosha with a sour taste. Moving the pilots and captains to the viper deck could easily seem like a demotion, but she had to swap one to the Rhea who wouldn't handle the move well, while the other would take up the challenge. In frustration, she opens her list once more and scribbles her recommendations beside each name and slams the notebook closed. Standing, she leaves the notebook on the table for the Commander to read it.

Passing the bridge, she hesitates and turns around. With Commander Florus and her old XO reviewing the imagined escape path, Myosha steps up and listens patiently as they review data gathered before they went into hiding. Estimating a week in the cloud, they would exit at the rear, far from any breaks and their Cylon pursuers. Concluding their briefing, Commander Florus leads Myosha back to the conference room and opens the notebook. Flipping through the crew lists, she zeroes in on the deck crews. Nodding in agreement, she stops at her choice for XO for the Achilles. Shaking her head, she addresses Myosha.

"This won't do."

As Myosha opens her mouth to protest the commander stops her sharply.

First, they have history between them, and it could interfere with the decision process. Second, the captain of the Coeus, _Major _Tenian will make a superb XO for Colonel Themis. I feel _Major _Braka would serve best at the helm of the Aporia. You were correct in your FITREPs, as I have spent this down time reviewing every one of them, and his talents lie in commanding your old boat."

As Myosha's face turns to flames, the commander intercedes once more.

"Thus, I feel your talents lie in continuing your training as an XO, rather than a ship of your own. You have a similar attitude problem as Dianna did, and I look forward to educating you further. Colonel Styles was not a good judge of character, as I have personally interviewed numerous members of your fleet, and I have got an exact opposite description of what he was putting in the FITREPs. He was correct that you knew your procedures, as your test scores were something he couldn't refute."

She extends her hand to Myosha.

"Welcome aboard the Titanica, _Lieutenant_ _Colonel_ Huron."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Moving into her new quarters wasn't what Myosha imagined it would be like. Aside from most of her belongings fitting into two large tote bags, she had to remove the belongings of the previous occupant. Lt. Colonel Burrell was a tidy man with two teen boys and a beautiful wife. He liked writing in a journal every evening before he went to bed, as if he was writing to his family. She carefully tucked his belongings into a box and clearly marked his name and rank on it. Though she doubts his relatives will ever recover them, she feels obligated to make sure they have everything. As the last of her stuff finds its place in the closet and desk, the door chimes. Even after Myosha yells to enter, the door remains closed tight and chimes again. After the third chime and beckoning to enter, Myosha storms to the door and opens it. Growling she sees a lowly ensign extending her small hand to ring the doorbell and yelps as the door flies open in her face. Fuming, Myosha snarls out at the terrified curly brunette.

"I SAID ENTER!"

Shaking at her knees she squeaks out.

"B…but I didn't get a chance to ring it yet, Colonel Huron."

As Myosha starts to argue with the awkward girl, she stops and demands her to speak. Incapacitated in terror, she shakes in her finely polished boots and pressed uniform.

"Um…Commander Florus wants all key staff in her conference room in ten minutes."

As Myosha prepares to rip into the young ensign, some part of her urges her to use tempered forgiveness and she brushes away her anger. Nodding she tells her to be on her way and recovers her jacket from her closet.

As she turns to leave, she sees a framed picture of the deceased Colonel Burrell and family perched on a coffee table by her reading corner. On every assignment since she was a lowly ensign out of Officer College, she made a portion of her space a private corner she called her reading corner. Decorated with heirlooms and memories from her youth and college, she would hunker down in her personal corner and write in her journal, read letters from home, and even immerse herself in faraway worlds of adventure. With her new assignment no different than others before, she appreciated the accommodations afforded for someone of her rank. The previous commander was an intense bookworm, and Commander Florus gladly let Myosha transfer the small library to her quarters. Though Colonel Burrell had a few dozen books of his own, the commander's stock filled her bookshelves to capacity and then some. Discovering another two boxes of books in the commander's storage room, Myosha realized she'd just have to read what she has on the shelves first, and replace them as she goes. Retrieving the picture, she cannot imagine how she missed this last picture of the family, and opens a box. Resting the picture on top, she recloses the box and rushes out the door.

With three chairs open, she chooses the one closest to the commander and sits. Accepting a file folder from the terrified Ensign Jalter, she watches as the girl swiftly moves around the table before leaving. Laughing inside, Myosha opens the file and reads a detailed breakdown of their planned departure path. Taking a week to travel the length of the dust cloud, the risky escape was their best hope. Flipping through department efficiency reports across the Titanica, she was genuinely impressed with the level of improvement over the past twelve days. With the entire crew learning their jobs as they go, if it weren't for the Achilles's crew, the battlestar would be effectively useless.

With the scrapping of the Rhea and Clotho, they finally removed the last salvageable piece equipment from the lifeless hulks yesterday before her shift started. With every drop of fuel and every reusable part stripped and cut out of the ship, Myosha silently bid the old companions farewell and gave the order to set them adrift. Through the rear viewer, the skeletons of the Red Demeter Group slowly fade and are soon lost in the misty haze of the cloud. The door of the conference room gently hisses open, and Myosha instinctively rises. Acknowledging the various department heads, she decides to remain standing and fetch a cup of coffee. As she finishes pouring hers, she pours one for the Commander and sets it at her place on the table as Commander Florus enters. Ensign Jalter brings the room to 'attention' and the Commander immediately dismisses them by mentioning for everyone to take their seats. She opens a palm-sized notebook, and begins speaking.

"At our current course and speed, we'll be entering the largest section of the cloud today but it will only take us five days to exit. That is, if Lieutenant Benders is even close in her 'estimate' of the mass of this cloud. Do we have any improvements from DRADIS?"

Everyone's attention turns to Lieutenant Michael Junten, a keen avionics engineer. He opens a notebook, scans a page and replies dryly.

"No Commander. There's only so much we can do without a vast fighter screen surrounding us. Right now we have the Achilles leading us, and their detection systems are only eight percent better than those of the Titanica. DRADIS technology hasn't improved much over the years since this behemoth was designed and constructed."

As if on cue, Captain Scott clears his throat and speaks.

"Well, thanks to Titanica's simulator we have 30 raptor pilots who are now viper qualified. I'd prefer to do actual flight trials, but this cloud is no place to practice in. We'd lose half the pilots and never see them again. I am training about fifty other engineers and mechanics that seem to show some aptitude to flying, but they are far from ready to step in a simulator. I have my best three raptor pilots training them every day."

Commander Florus nods.

"Good work, but even 80 viper pilots is far short of what we need. As soon as we get clear of this cloud, I want to link up with the surviving fleet and get reinforcements. I can't imagine we're the only ones who made it out of the line of fire. If these really are Cylons, then we've got one fraking crazy war ahead of us. Excuse my language. This is a very taxing situation…as you all know."

Myosha grins subtly. Hearing her commander apologize for her "language" is comical at the least. One of the defining characteristics of military service for Myosha was the colorful language she acquired. She found her first hurdle in serving was learning how to temper her tongue when she returned home. Her mother threatened to put her over her knee if she spoke foully around her, so she left home with a bruised tongue after biting it for three weeks. The commander clears her throat and inhales sharply snapping everyone's attention back onto her.

"Lastly, what are these accident reports I'm reading. Two deaths now?"

Aliza Gurmna was an astute maintenance manager on the Rhea, and was without question the best choice to serve on the Titanica. The two bizarre accidents stumped her best attempts to isolate the reasons. A week ago, Machi Lewins was troubleshooting a short in the airlock controls when it malfunctioned and cycled open, blowing him out into space before anyone could help. The 29 year old man had who had no family and kept to himself, was well liked in the department. Apparently the door immediately cycled open and closed before anyone could stop his departure into the dust cloud. Weirder yet, was the loss of Ensign Gayla Cellar, communications engineer, who for unknown reasons ventured into the avionics bay and was electrocuted by a lose 800 volt power-feeder cable. The best Aliza could piece together was that she was shimming on her back carrying a piece of gear and the cable was knocked loose. Falling directly on her sweaty chest, it cooked her almost instantly and melted the white box resting on her chest. Only small pieces remained of the equipment, but it was non-standard and unidentifiable. Raising more questions than answers, Aliza ordered no unscheduled maintenance without a buddy, and harped on safety protocols. Since then, there have been no further deaths, but accidents and malfunctions are still strange and bizarre. Myosha continually reminded the Commander that the ship was still on its shake-down cruise after construction, so all the small problems of a new ship were never corrected.

Glancing through the file folder, Myosha sees a picture of Gayla and absently admires the chestnut-blonde's beautiful pixie features. The unusual beauty makes her feel a pang of sorrow for the horrific death of such a young girl. Out of nowhere, Myosha feels a firm slap on the back of her head making her eyes bulge in surprise, anger and humiliation. As she gets up to thrash the individual, she sees no one behind her or standing that could have smacked her head. Whipping her head around, she can't find anyone who could have orchestrated the head slap, and no one seemed to be paying attention. The hit, neither concussively painful nor damaging, had the air of a wakeup call rather than malice.

The room immediately raises their heads to Myosha who stands wide-eyed beside Commander Florus. Looking up to her second in command, she asks if there's anything else for her, and Myosha can only shake her head no in a bewildered fashion before speaking.

"No…I think I've been drinking too much coffee or something."

Mildly confused, Commander Florus nods in agreement.

"I think it's very understandable. We're all strung-out with more questions than answers for our situation. Let's keep it together. Everyone is depending on us to be their beacons of strength during these rough times. If there is nothing else, you're dismissed."

As the room empties, Myosha strides onto the bridge rubbing the back of her head and gets an update from the bridge officers. With nothing new, she confirms their course and speed for the Commander. As Commander Florus reviews the ship's status, she takes her seat and prepares for a long and tense week ahead.

Commander Florus enjoyed her daily pre-lunch run through the ship. Aside from the exercise, she enjoyed the opportunity to look the ship over, interact with the crew, and feel the general condition of the ship. It was beyond just getting joy from her actions, but feeling like she's making a difference by roaming the corridors. Often she'd stop and investigate rooms and sections, previously unlisted in purpose or function. With growing frequency, she felt an emotional pull or push as she moved through the ship, never felt on any ship prior. Dismissing the emotional surges, she spent her week familiarizing the nooks and crannies of her ship.

With two days remaining until they leave the notorious cloud of metal, ice and silicon dust, she couldn't wait to get clear of the nebula and bring their long range communications online. With the constant interaction and rubbing of the particles, the small fleet was constantly experiencing electrical fluxes and discharges. Through the screen, a constant snow field filtered their view and made details impossible to discern. Even for the raptors, spread out 5000 meters around the Titanica and fleet, their sensors barely increased the detection bubble. Offering them a minute or more of warning of dangerously large collisions, the raptors were spread dangerously thin on their flanks, and only a single raptor covering their rear. With the two transports on Titanica's left and right, they offered the only protection from a stray asteroid collision.

As Doneatha rounds her final corner before heading back toward the bridge, a blinking caution light from the cargo bay grabs her attention. Stopping, she moves towards the empty bay, and interrogates the panel. The bay, used to receive and transfer medium-sized parts and equipment bound for the forward third of the ship, had but a dozen crates of spare parts and low-value commodities. With pressure reading within normal parameters and temperatures the same as the corridor, she tries to unlock the door, but it refuses to release the electronic lock. Knowing she can always manually unlatch the mechanism, she tries to sort out the glitch through the panel.

From bridge of the Aporia, newly promoted Major Caleb Braka studied the sensor readings alongside his navigator Ensign Koba. A recent graduate of the academy, the black-haired Asian was still learning the finer points of the older vessel, after spending two years studying the latest advancements in technology. As the pair hunch over thousands of erroneous readings of objects, they suddenly discern a reading consistently appearing on their sensors. Though it was just beyond their range, it seemed to be getting closer at a rather high velocity. Too large to be a missile, it was difficult to discern if it would intersect their path before or after they passed. With thousands of similarly-sized objects regularly passing them, the duty of tracking these objects was difficult at best. As they try calculating the trajectory, Caleb tells him to send the Titanica appropriate course corrections to be on the safe side.

As the wedge-shaped object shoots past the raptor pilot at over 1000 meters per second, he warns the Aporia only seconds before it brushes against an outer cargo hold. Thrusting the aft section of the Aroria upwards, the object is deflected downwards by many degrees, but not decreasing its velocity. With the speed of a bullet, the object impales the Titanica at the rear cargo bay sending everyone to the floor. Commander Florus picks herself from deck and activates the room's overhead lights. Through the door's porthole window, she sees a 15 foot cone-shaped wedge piercing the outer cargo door. Undamaged from the collision, it sits idly and seems no worse for wear. Looking at the control panel, she notices the locking system is now working, but the pressure inside the bay is gone. With the safeties refusing to open the door, the red pressure warning light shines brilliantly and she shakes her head. Going to a nearby phone, she calls the bridge and orders the fleet to a full stop.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Hunched over a table filled with displays, Commander Florus stood with Myosha and her best repair leaders at their sides. From shoulder mounted cameras, each display gave them a detailed view of the damage from the exterior of the ship. Each of the four inspectors on tethers expertly evaluated the damage to the ship. Listening to the feeds, each confirms the damage is confined to the cargo door itself. Nodding, Myosha takes still pictures of the feeds, and transfers them to a central display, pointing out four distinctive scorch marks around the edges of the door.

"Those are from emergency braking thrusters. My guess is that the vessel tried decelerating moments before the impact. If it hadn't, I imagine we'd be doing this from inside the corridor rather than outside the ship. DRADIS tracked it originally travelling at 4000 meters a second, and it was only doing 800 meters when it hit; perhaps slower. And don't even ask me if I know what this thing is made of. This green material isn't metal, and it's not even scratched from punching through our door."

As the inspectors drift around the 60 foot long vessel, they discern no cockpit or hatches until they drift underneath. A third of the way back, a square panel with writing in a wide circle lies engraved in the square. Taking out a large painting brush, he sweeps away eons of dust statically adhering to the surface. Uncovering dozens of unknown languages, he pauses so Myosha can take several good pictures of the panel. Printing out the image, Myosha confirms a set of four good captures and moves on to help imagine removing the ship.

As Doneatha and Myosha scratch their heads, Captain Dutella Briar clears her throat.

"I don't know about any of these others…"

She pauses and points out a poorly etched set of glyphs running parallel to the edge of the panel before continuing.

"…but these are most likely ancient Kobol. This isn't my specialty, but I think Forester would know. Ancient history is his passion."

Doneatha looks to Myosha in anticipation. Remembering their circumstances, Myosha extracts her head from the situation, and motions for Ensign Jalter to step forward.

"Get Captain Forester from the simulator, and expedite his butt here now!"

With an athlete's determination, she disappears down the hall in a flash, as the engineers give their best choice to remove the vessel.

"I recommend we cut the door, remove the ship, and weld it all back together. The hinges are more than likely Frak'ed, and we're not using the bay anyways, right?"

Myosha nods to the Commander.

"We were storing extra parts and junk, nothing we can't relocate."

The Commander sighs heavily, smelling her need for an emergency shower after the crisis has passed.

"Well, I don't want to dump this ship overboard, it could have untold technologies or information onboard. Do we have a secure bay we could store it in?"

Myosha nods.

"Aye. The center raptor pod can easily house it. We can use the utility pods to move it there, like we do large cargo."

Nodding, Commander Florus addresses the repair crews.

"Sounds like a plan, make it happen."

Turning to Myosha, she continues.

"This is your area of expertise, so I'll put this in your hands to oversee. If you'll excuse me, I need a fresh uniform. Once the Captain has figured out the writing, convene a meeting in the conference room."

Repressing a chuckle, Myosha grins realizing how true the statement was. Nodding, she stands erect as the commander excuses herself and they resume the extraction and repairs.

With dozens of books sprawled out on the conference tables, Captain Forester moves from book to book, taking notes of various symbols and glaring at the photos of the panel. He fails to notice the Commander and Myosha enter as he is engrossed in the deciphering. After a minute, Myosha sharply clears her throat pulling him back into reality. Resembling everything one would imagine from a book-junky, he only lacked the spectacles to round out the look. Doneatha's patience begins to wane and Myosha speaks for her.

"You said you figured it out?"

He nervously nods, and motions to inspect the pictures.

"Well, I did…sort of."

Seeing Myosha cringe, he apologizes and rewords his previous statement.

"I mean that I know what language is written at the bottom of that panel…early ancient Kobol…from the second age."

Reading the lack of comprehension form his commander and friend, he stammers as he continues.

"There were three ages of Kobol. When the gods first arrived was the first, the second was during their reign, and then the language changed significantly marking the third age before they left Kobol. We deciphered a great deal of the third age, but very little of the second and first."

Rolling her eyes, Myosha grits her teeth as she speaks.

"So you haven't cracked this."

Realizing his walking on thin ice, he throws his hands forward in defense.

"I've got a little bit done which is bringing up some interesting questions if I'm right. I'm no linguist, but the first eight characters is a warning. 'Do not wake the green dragon.' If I'm right, this actually answers a dozen questions regarding the prophets Pythia and Suranna the sister prophets. For ages, everyone thought Suranna was the crazy sister, who misread every prophecy she saw."

Commander Florus shakes her head and takes a seat.

"I'm no religious authority, and I have no idea what you are babbling on about."

Cautiously, he continues slowly.

"Pythia is the one all modern priests refer to as the visionary to the end of days, while her sister was insane and never got anything right. She was disregarded and buried in centuries of ridicule. Suranna foresaw the end of days similarly to her sister, but they diverge early and take two completely different paths."

Flipping through a book to his left, he reads:

"Humanity will escape the wraith of the forgotten child on ships built by fools. The great deceiver will ensure humanity's destruction, and the forgotten child's minions will eradicate civilization.

All this has happened before. All this will happen again.

It cannot be prevented, nor will it be stopped."

"Suranna was absorbed with a dragon of old. She foresaw this dragon being the greatest danger and savior for our people. I've got books and books over her prophecies, mostly because no one gives a care about what she saw. It will take me a while to read through them all."

Doneatha mulls over the picture of dozens of engraved languages.

"And you have no idea what these other languages are?"

Shaking his head, Forester glances down at them once more before responding.

"I'm afraid not Commander. I've never seen anything like them before, but I do get the distinct impression, as a ship engineer, that these are meant as a warning for opening the access panel or maybe procedures perhaps, or even identification markings. All the writing in the circular pattern was from the original casting, while the Kobol is hand engraved. The writing in Kobol was an afterthought; not made when the original protective plate was cast. And from the looks of it, they had a hard time making a dent in this material. This is a bizarre form of armored ceramic material. Super light, practically immune to kinetic damage, and is older than anything we've ever seen. If we weren't in our current dire straits, this ship would be the archeological find of the millennium."

Biting her inner lip, Commander Florus rises.

"I'll get my cryptographer to work with you. He's pretty good, and might see something you can't. This is your new assignment captain."

An ensign enters the conference room and whispers into Myosha's ear. Nodding, she dismisses him.

"Commander? The ship is in the center bay ready for you to inspect, and the damaged bay door is secured and welded tight."

Doneatha looks at her watch and nearly falls over.

"Well I'll be. I heard that Red Demeter was good, but 96 minutes? So much for a repair estimate of 3 days and 5 shifts."

With a subtle smile, Myosha follows her Commander down to the center pod.

"All you said was make her flyable. In 96 minutes, you get flyable and combat worthy. Pretty…it is not. That door will never be used again, but it will not leak or be a security risk."

The flurry of security surrounding the green ship seemed useless, as the ship had no apparent weapons or threats. As the commander enters the bay, she acknowledges the security detail surrounding her every move. Gazing on the wedge-shaped ship, she is surprised to see four, five-foot tall stilt legs deployed underneath the craft. As she starts to ask, Chief Gill Haddock smirks.

"The damn thing just lowered them as they got close to putting it on the deck. Scared the piss out of everyone. I think it was an automatic system, because we got no readings off it before or since."

Walking around the ship, the commander admires the simple design. Noting dozens of concealed doors and panels, she can't imagine the design was unknown to them. As she reaches out to touch a panel door, she stops and looks at the chief. He nods his approval.

"We cleaned her off and sterilized it before we lowered her into the bay. There was literally a ton of dust and debris caked on it. The Rad meter was high before we started and is now nominal. I'm glad we did it facing out the back. We registered an 1800 pound weight difference before and after. When we were done, we had this bright green monstrosity sitting in front of us. There's not a scratch on it. No combat damage, no impact craters, not even micro-impacts. I have no idea what it's made of, but I wish I could make this stuff. Think of a fleet of vipers made of this."

Commander Florus nods in approval.

"So what about the door cover panel?"

He motions towards two roller beds on the deck, and he leads the commander underneath the ship. On their backs, they inspect the cover door. Pointing at a recessed door, he pushes it inwards and reveals a manual latch.

"Inside here…" He blasts his flashlight into the tight crevice illuminating five engraved images. Detailing which directions to turn the handle to open or close the door, he waits for the commander to give the order. He's surprised that the commander takes nearly a minute to decide.

"Do it."

With a quick nod, he twists the handle clockwise and the cover plate retracts two inches into the ship then slides aside revealing a small airlock door. Inspecting the airlock, he points out a control panel and a similar etched image on how to operate the panel. Rolling off the board, he crouches and begins cycling the system. In a minute, the door unlocks and swings down locking into position. As Commander Florus prepares to enter, Myosha grabs her arm stopping her.

"With all due respect Commander, how about you leave this to the experts."

Suppressing the urge to override her XO, she nods and steps back as Captain Bickers and Ensign Bellows climb up the ladder into the small ship clad in space suits. Letting Myosha lead her to the emergency bridge and sit in front of a remote station, settling for two display screens with real-time review.

Passing through the second airlock, the pair shine their lights around a thin cramped corridor. With the path leading forward and aft, they stand and walk forward towards a door. Noting numerous panels and doors to their right, they open a random panel and find a drawer filled with coveralls and drab shirts. Closing it, they continue forward, and subtle red flash catches Doneatha's attention, making her key her mic.

"Stop! Turn left and down. What's down there?"

Following her orders, the pair look down and use brushes to push off a light coating of dust. Shining their lights around, they gasp as they struggle to point their cameras through a glass sheet. Though the Commander could not discern anything from the camera angels, Captain Bickers exclaims.

"Commander? You're not going to believe this. We have the pilot…and I think it's alive."

Emerging from the dust cloud, a pair of raptors begin sweeping the area and spend an hour doing reconnaissance. In haste they return to the cloud and dock inside the Achilles. Commander Florus anxiously awaits their report, despite the impending awakening of the pilot in the flight deck below. Over the past week, Doctor Hera Strom theorized their guest was in an advanced form of suspended animation. Through no actions of their own, he was slowly reviving and she guessed would awaken in another week. Though the process was a novelist's dream, it was bizarre for the commander to view it firsthand. Wearing a gold-shielded flight helmet, it was anyone's guess what he would look like. No more than five and a half feet long, the body resembled a meek human, with next to no body fat. Wearing a grey flight suit, it looked extremely common and unfitting of a pilot. With a security detail posted out front, the only monitor inside was a remote camera to the medical bay.

Doneatha patiently waits as the recon pilots fly aboard with the film and personally debrief her. The shuttling of the pilots did little to alieve her anxiety, as she never requested them to do so. With Colonel Themis joining them, she knew it was bad news. With her senior leaders around her the pilots enter and load their recon films.

"Commander, we exited and did our sweeps and immediately recognized we drifted 2 days off course. Apparently, the cloud was highly mobile and dragged us along. Worse, we detected that we still have another week of travel before we can completely exit this mess."

The second raptor pilot instantly chimes in.

"There is a bright side to this, commander. I know we are only a week further to the Magellan Rock, and there is nothing blocking us from getting there."

Stumped, Doneatha shrugs and Myosha interjects.

"MR-297. A secret war depot lost in time. Red Demeter was tasked with emptying these old sites and scrapping them. We had about a dozen of these secret sites on our list, but our hunt for the Titanica messed up our time table. We should be able to max out our fuel, ammo, and water."

The commander nods and breathes a sigh of relief.

"Finally good fortune shines upon us. We'll go there and refuel and rearm. I want a combat upload. There's no telling if the enemy has eyes on that site, and I don't want to be a sitting duck."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Pushing through the blue-green dust and gases, the Titanica turns into the shielded corridor of the nebula revealing one of a few remaining Cylon War depots on the books. Originally slated as demolished, Myosha's team had to file false completion records in order to hide their diligent search. Though authorized, she hated the falsification of official records, yet as they rounded their turn to dock, she had never been as thankful in her entire life. Her crew were readily synching into the rough and brutal life of the real fast paced military life, with the exceptions being slapped into shape. Keeping the ship commanders at their stations meant Myosha and all the XOs were handling the bulk of the upload. As they scour the archives, she was genuinely impressed by the accuracy of the forgotten loaders and stockers for the depot. With their stock of missiles and ammo, the Titanica was finally fully armed with ship to ship missiles. Though none were nuclear, the high explosive warheads were still a third in explosive yield compared to nukes. Modern high explosive were nearly half as powerful as the old nuclear warheads, but the old explosives still packed a punch in combat.

As she passes the twelfth hour, she answers a summons to the med bay. Expecting to find a laid-out mechanic who screwed up out of haste, she scans the bunks for anyone standing out and stops at young man with his head wrapped up. As Doctor Strom strolls alongside, she whispers to Myosha.

"A guard rail broke and he cracked his skull on the wall as he fell. He's going to need some serious care, and my nurses in training are struggling. The good news is that the freezers on the depot have doubled our medical stocks across the fleet, so we won't need any resupply for some time to come, but this is not why I called you here. Follow me to my office."

Dodging the flow of personnel and supplies through the bay, she finally catches up with the doctor who stands over a remote display. Recognizing it from a week ago, Myosha studies the interior of the alien ship and starts to ask, when she notices the occupant's hand twitch. Nearly jumping backwards, she studies the display and is rewarded with additional activity from the alien. Dryly, the doctor continues.

"Our pilot is very humanoid under all that gear. In fact I'm willing to say _she _is very likely human. Yes, I have performed numerous infrared scans and can conclusively say she is very likely human. That muscle and mass we thought we were looking at is just a suit of some kind…it might preserve her or keep her body from deteriorating during this stasis. She seems in good health considering she was dead by our definition, and she will awaken soon. Exactly when is anyone's guess."

Running her hands through her dark amber hair, the doctor points to a time-lapse shot of the small woman; the slideshow reveals her moving or twitching all over her body parts systematically over the past week. Shaking her head Myosha struggles to make sense of the meaning. As the shrugs, the doctor continues.

"She's warming up every muscle in her body in preparation to wake. Think of it as if she's doing operational checks before she has to use the machine. Not sure if this is the computer directing it or she is, but she's done a complete systems check twice now and she's starting her third set, at a rather increased rate every time I might add."

Myosha shakes her head in disbelief.

"Have you briefed the Commander yet?"

Shaking her head, she continues dryly.

"No. She's been busier than me. You're the first I've told."

Patting the doctor's shoulder, she nods in agreement and prepares to leave.

"Thanks…lucky me."

It was on the third day they finished stripping the depot of every last piece of gear, supply tin, and round of ammo. With the water tanks on the Titanica half full upon arrival, they fashioned refillable bladders in the cargo carriers and drained the depot's tanks. Lumbering out of the hidden nook of the nebula, the Achilles led the march out of the dark clouds with the Titanica following closely, and the cargo ships taking up the rear. Hours tick by giving Myosha time to brief Doneatha on the long lists of accidents, injuries, and personnel laid up in the infirmary. Doneatha realized there would be some injuries, but not the list which her XO presented her. Explaining most of Red Demeter was used to a laid back, unmilitary lifestyle, Myosha wasn't surprised. When she finally got to their sleeping pilot in the flight bay, the commander seemed to comprehend the situation far better than she had the first time she was briefed.

As they viewed the feed from medical, the Achilles called for a full stop and spoke over the wireless.

"Commander! Scouts report there's a detachment of enemy craft waiting for us to exit the nebula. They can't be for certain, but it seems like the same ones which chased us originally."

Myosha curses under her breath, and she sees the hopes of escape drain from the faces of everyone around her. As Commander Florus turns to Myosha to discuss options, the scout screams in a frantic update.

Commander! New DRADIS contacts! I got 5 inbound towards the enemy craft! They're colonial! We got four destroyers and a missile boat! They're engaging! The enemy craft is launching fighters….hundreds Commander!"

Myosha can't believe the words coming out of her mouth.

"Commander, I seriously doubt they'll last long against this huge capital ship. We should engage! We have them in a crossfire! Two large forces will prevent them from concentrating fire on any one target. Let's have our cargo ship hang behind in the clouds."

Wearing an evil grin on Doneatha's face, she whispers to her XO.

"And I actually thought you'd be the last one to engage the target."

Turning to her com officer, she orders the cargo fleet to hang back, and turns back to Myosha.

"XO! Take us out. Achilles! Take a position to our rear and concentrate fire on the fighters. Colonel Huron, have Red Stallion and Gold Swindler viper squads prepare for launch. Tell them to maintain our defensive shield against fighters slipping past our Triple-A."

Myosha nods and barks orders as Commander Florus screams to get the commander of the other attacking fleet on the line.

Over the speaker a beleaguered man cries out.

"This is Commander Galion of the Third Gemenon Fleet! Who is commanding that Battlestar?

Commander Florus sneers.

"This is Commander Florus of the First Caprican Fleet and I'm commanding my small division of surviving vessels. Am I correct in assuming this enemy ship is a Cylon Basestar?"

As he comes back on the line, he is suppressing the cheers and cries on his bridge.

"Yes Commander, you most certainly are correct. How about we show these toasters what happens when you get into a straight forward fire fight with the Colonial Fleet, rather than a sneak attack."

Doneatha nods approvingly, not that he sees it.

"Aye, commander. How about a roundtable round up?"

Commander Galion cannot restrain his enthusiasm.

"Sounds good. I'll work one of my destroyers to lead you and have yours take up your aft flank?"

From all of Myosha's theoretical training or command and tactical colleges, nothing prepared her for the chaos and onslaught of real warfare. In a short number of minutes, the Cylons went from an assured victory to terror as the concentrated firepower of seven ships obliterates not just their fighter screens, but any hopes of escape. Commander Florus recognized the shift in tactics from the enemy as they rapidly recalled a third of the fighters to attack the Titanica. Surmising they were more interested in destroying the support ships rather than a fully operational battlestar, she has her destroyer extend its cover-fire towards protecting the missile boat, and have the destroyers form a protective wall of fire on the opposite side of the Titanica. Synchronizing their rotation, the Cylons see their advanced tactics and weaponry rendered useless under the heavy fire and bombardment. Sending one of their destroyers to lead the Titanica, and the Achilles taking up the rear, the waves of fighters are brushed aside, leaving the Titanica to concentrate fire on the Cylon Basestar.

Despite lacking any nuclear warheads, the conventional warheads of the Titanica tear the massive capital ship to pieces. With the missile boat bombarding the Cylon ship with its banks of nuclear and conventional missiles the battle lasts a fraction of the time Myosha first imagined. As the last of the Cylon fighters are destroyed, Myosha can't believe they weathered the battle so well. With light damage reported, the repair crews report above average repair times. Even Commander Florus was amazed by the repair estimates. Privately, Doneatha whispers to Myosha.

"Your people are miracle workers. This kind of damage should take days to fix."

Laughing Myosha replied slyly.

"Commander, they are your people now, Red Demeter is long gone."

With hours of conversations with the five new ship commanders, Myosha responds to a summons from the doctor. With Commander Florus absorbed in meetings in her conference room, Myosha knew she had to buffer the information flow. Striding down into the bowels of the ship, she wrestled with the change in crew assignments once more. Of the four destroyers, the Heracles was far from new and ship-shape before it went into battle. Pieced together in a secret space dock, its original function was to act as sacrifice to disable the Cylon Basestar so the three other ships could destroy it. With the arrival of Titanica's fleet, their tactics changed and it survived the battle. Unfortunately the FTL drive was good for only one jump, and was now useless. Evacuating the skeleton crew, they were dispersed back among the surviving fleet and set the engines to blow. Furthermore, the singular colonial fleet was dissolved and resurrected into four surviving fleets with no uniform chain of command or tactics between them.

The five ships they ran into were desperate to refuel and rearm to get into the fight, that the loss of one destroyer was insignificant. From preliminary reports, there were only eight surviving battlestars, and there were rumors of two more leaving the battle lines to look for a safe territory to call home. With no one leader able to merge the fractured fleet, it didn't take a tactical genius to recognize the direction the war was heading. The new Cylon fleet was technologically and numerically superior and responsible for the massive surprise attack on the colonies. Everyone knew they were behind the attacks, but the reports hit home with the cold truth: there was no home to go back to.

Entering the medical bay, Myosha is taken back by the cleanliness and lack turmoil from just a day prior. With most of the injured in a separate bay, the doctor preferred to keep only critical patients close by. Finding her beside one such patient, Myosha waits patiently until she exits. Motioning her to follow with her finger, she leads the XO into her office and points towards the display screen. Myosha takes a minute to realize the camera is lying face up on the deck looking up at the bottom hatch door of the alien ship. As she begins to protest, the doctor rewinds the recording and points to watch the pilot wake up. The bed doors split open and the pilot rolls effortless out of bed and stands. Reaching out and grasping the camera, she tosses it out the hatch and walks towards the second camera mounted at the ceiling facing the cockpit. Ripping it free, she tosses it out the open hatch, and slams the hatch shut. As Myosha fights from cursing, the doctor clears her throat.

"This happened during the battle. I didn't get a chance to review the tapes until an hour ago. I've been so busy I didn't have the chance to notify anyone, until now at least."

Myosha desperately struggles to interpret the scene and realizes she has to get her commander involved. Shaking her head, she takes the recording, excuses herself and rushes back to the bridge. After assigning a security detail to keep everyone away from the ship, she interrupts the Commander's meetings. Politely motioning she needs a private ear, the commander adjourns the meeting and directs Myosha into her quarters. Myosha accepts a glass of water and takes a deep calmed breath before revealing the events transpired during the battle. After reviewing the recording, Doneatha summons Captain Forester to the bay, and leads Myosha down.

If it weren't for the damage control and repairs going on all over the ship, Doneatha doubted she could have had any privacy for what she had to do. As she starts to move towards the ship, Captain Forester stops her.

"I'm sorry Commander, but its best you let me or the Chief do this."

As she starts to protest, she sees her XO agreeing and backs down. Grabbing a heavy wrench from a tool box, he makes his way towards the hatch. As he crouches underneath, he sees the outer hatch still open but the inner one is sealed tight. As he searches for a sturdy place to strike the wrench against which won't cause noticeable damage, a young girl's voice rings out over a speaker.

"If you hit my ship with that, I swear I will ram that tool in a place which will require a very understanding surgeon to recover it."

As the captain quickly backs out from underneath the craft, the voice rings out once again.

"Thank you. I'll be out momentarily."

Joining the Commander and XO, he grins sarcastically and adjusts his coat. A minute passes and a meek shape leaps down to the deck from inside the ship. Flourished in a mind-numbing number of blue and green gossamer robes, the meek pilot strides towards the assembled group with her hands hanging open by her sides. With a dark blue veil covering her head, she reaches them and bows dramatically. The commander pauses before returning the gesture. As she starts to introduce herself and crew, the girl speaks.

"I apologize for damaging your ship, but my logs clearly show one of those cargo vessels deflected my ship and caused me to pierce yours. If you wish for me to make reparations, I have no currency or wealth to speak of. I am merely a lone pilot far from home."

Nodding, Commander Florus contemplates her words carefully.

"We seek no compensation or reparations for the event. I too believe it was an unforeseeable accident. It appears that fortunately your ship was undamaged by the impact, but if you are in need of any assistance, I am willing to offer help."

The girl chuckles under the veil.

"You are a fine host. Well, I have to admit, I would seriously enjoy some company after my long nap, not to mention a chance to clean up and get some fresh clothes on. Afterwards, perhaps we can discuss what I can do for you."

Myosha steps forward immediately, not considering any diplomatic procedures or consequences.

"Commander, she may use my quarters."

Pausing in her stride back to her ship, the pilot cocks her head sideways.

"Are they private? No one is allowed to view me as I bathe or change."

Nodding her head in approval, Myosha continues without pausing.

"Absolutely miss. I will personally stand guard outside the door if you wish."

Bowing her head, the girl disappears momentarily inside her ship and returns toting a small duffle bag. With strange yellow markings and an oblong yellow checkmark running the length, Commander Florus cannot make any sense of the origins. As the procession heads towards Colonel Huron's quarters, Captain Forester seems lost to his thoughts. Struggling to place an obscure puzzle piece, he grabs Lieutenant Kepless, the ship's cryptographer, and whispers to the Commander.

"Ma'am, I need to borrow your cryptographer for a few hours. It's important."

Unable to imagine any particular need for him, she nods and lets them run off to the conference room they were using to decipher the writing. With the door closed, Captain Forester closes dozens of books and shoves them aside. As Lt. Markus Helms starts to protest, the captain explains.

"I remember something I read about this, but I can't remember where it was. I'm looking for some reference or myth about someone having to bathe in complete privacy. I know I can't get any vaguer, but trust me it's important."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Entering the XO's quarters, the meek girl scans the room with a calculating stare. Running her finger tips over every trinket and book on the shelves, she seems preoccupied with the low roar of the ship constantly ringing in her ears. Making her way around the room, she arrives at Myosha's sacred reading corner and admires the framed photo of the previous XO. Myosha rolls her eyes in disbelief.

"I have put that picture away at least a dozen times, and I swear it keeps finding its way back there. I must be going nuts and bringing it back out in my sleep."

With a childish giggle, she sets it back down on the table and meanders towards the shower. The warning claxons sound for an imminent jump, and Myosha grabs a hold of a support beam as the ship subtly lurches from one location to the next. After a few minutes, she hears the 'all-clear' and points out the shower amenities and heads towards the door. Over her shoulder she mentions she'll wait outside. With an urgent beckoning, the girl calls out.

"Please don't. The last time I had them wait outside, a certain someone of authority took advantage of his status and ordered my guard away. Just wait inside and don't let anyone pass, will be fine. Besides, I haven't had any new company in a very long time, except my ship. Our conversations get a little old after a while, you know system statuses, star positions, astronomical anomalies…it all gets old. Tell me about yourself. Nothing too personal, just talk so that I know you're still in the room. Start with your names."

Surprised, Myosha secures the locks on the door, and moves a chair in front of the massive steel door before she begins. The water in the shower turns on and sounds of her undressing echo in the silent room.

"Well, I'm Colonel Myosha Huron, and my ship commander is Commander Florus, and…well…there's nothing much to talk about really if you're not from around here. I'm a naturally born Caprican, from a family of ship captains. I'm the first in three generations to serve in the military; my family was proud business owners before me. I realized the only way I was going to fill their shoes was to join the colonial fleet. I have an engineering background, thanks to my father, and fell into the recovery and demolition division. It's not as glamorous as a battlestar commander, but the ship commander track is far quicker…or at least it was supposed to be."

After a noticeable pause, the girl giggles once again, signaling Myosha to continue.

"I have a brother who is filling my father's shoes…at least I hope he survived the attacks. We don't think many did."

From the shower, the girl yells out over the running water.

"What attack? Against these Cylons or machine warriors?"

Suppressing the tears of remembering her family, Myosha swallows sharply and replies.

"Yes. We call them Cylons. We had a war with them long ago but it only ended in a stalemate. It seems they coordinated a massive sneak attack on our colonies, and we believe most of our race is gone. They laid waste to hundreds of our largest cities, killing everyone. Our people were in the billions, now we hope it's at least still in the millions. No one is sure of anything now."

The girl continues to shower and talk.

"I am extremely sorry. Are these Cylons intelligent and self-aware or controlled by a separate government or species?"

Shrugging, she speaks up over the din of the water.

"We're told they are self-aware, but legends say they were once inhabited by human souls, and fought back against becoming our slaves. There's no proof of that, but it's an interesting fantasy to entertain. Kind of changes things if you think of it that way, but they did start the war, and they did attack us first both times. I just know my family is more than likely dead, we have no home to go to, and no safe port to call our own. How did you hear about them?"

A silence longer than Myosha imagined is finally interrupted by the girl.

"My ship intercepted a number of communiques, and I think that's the name he heard. Do you know what their primary grievance is with humans?"

Shaking her head Myosha hears the water shut off.

"No idea. They're machines, and we're not?"

Hearing the girl drying off and changing, she finally continues.

"You have been extremely forthright, so I will do the same. My people are priestesses or warriors, while a few are both. I am an explorer, something that doesn't quite fit into their paradigm. I see the universe through a different set of goggles, and I roam. My ship's Secondary FTL drive broke and we accidentally arrived here. It's almost fixed, but I still have a few more years until it is operational. Needless to say, it's complicated, but I can still get around quite well without it. Not well enough to get back home, but travelling faster than light is still available."

Stepping out of the shower room, Myosha nearly stops breathing upon viewing the immaculate beauty of the nymph-like pixie-haired girl. Barely a young woman in contemporary walks, her icy hair is laced with a baby blue tinge and crisp green hued tips. With a flawless snowy complexion, her doe shaped icy-blue eyes are peppered with specks of emerald. With a petit nose, her sharp features off set her warm stare. Returning an impassioned glare, she breaks it to flip the veil over her face and don a pair of black boots. With a light blue and green camouflaged flight suit, she seductively closes the snaps on her flight suit and then boots before continues.

"I choose to reveal my true appearance only to a select few, so I wear the veil at all times around your people. Those of weak character have difficulty restraining their urges, so I have to take precautions."

Nodding, Myosha snaps out of the spell, and mentally records every nuance of her words.

"Around my people? So you've been in contact with humans before. When?"

Through her veil, Myosha can see her grin broadly.

"A very long time ago, little one. I've been sleeping for far too long as well. My ship told me that it would be a while before the repairs would be completed, but it conveniently failed to give me the details. He knew I would be perturbed regarding the length of time, but it is what it is. I'm not angry with him…just annoyed. Ship auto-repairs can take considerable time."

With an incredulous expression, Myosha leans forward.

"Auto-repair? Your ship fixing itself? That's some serious technology. The Cylons appear to have taken advantage of our networking capabilities and bypassed every major technological advance we've made since the first war. This ship was a prototype and should have been outfitted with all the latest computer advancements, but it's been lost for over seven years. My original team found it and restored it just in time to get back into the fight, and didn't suffer the fate of her sisters. For some reason all our wireless networking nodes were disabled when we found her, and we didn't have the parts to fix what were simply destroyed. The Cyclons used those nodes to access our fleet's computers and override our defenses, even on our fighters."

As she approaches Myosha, she looks up at her protector's hazel eyes to speak.

"I take it your computers are less sophisticated than a Cylon…low tech and not up to par against an AIS or an Artificially Intelligent System?"

Taken back, Myosha practically spits back.

"Well…yes! We do our own thinking and controlling. We don't relegate the processes off to a computer which we can do just as well, if not better."

Giggling in a childish tone, the girl carefully counters Myosha's heart filled response.

"This is funny for me, in that in your fear and hatred for the enemy has blinded you to the value and potential of superior technology. I could tell you of places and times which if it weren't for those advanced computers, humanity would never have taken to the stars in the first place. I understand your pain and hatred, but I think one has to ask is what were the true circumstances of their birth and purpose? The Cylons I mean. My people had a similar war against a machine race, like you, but we instilled fundamental respect and love of life, no matter if it was carbon-based or silicon. Our AIS chose to take up arms in our defense, not ordered. After the war was over, many of our people went back to an older age as you have and returned the systems to our own control like you did. Those robot warriors dismantled themselves and chose to be incorporated into fundamental systems like water reclamation, painters, musicians, builders, and even planetary defense grid controllers for the few hardened warriors."

The girl reads the disbelieving expression painted on Myosha's face and resists laughing as she continues.

"My ship was one of those warriors. He saw horrible combat where his brothers, sisters, and my people's blood spread across the fields of battle, and he had a difficult time finding a new place in our society afterwards. He sought me out, and made me a deal: if I made a ship, he would take me to the edges of universe. I was no warrior or priestess, and we both had skeletons in our closets. He's been a fair travelling companion, who still gets all giddy when we discover a new form of life or some astronomical anomaly only theorized to exist. And for the life of me, I have no idea why I'm telling you all this. I think I have been asleep for too long."

With a dramatic sigh, she stands erect and thrusts out her bare pale hand.

"My name is…Kreysta."

Myosha can't help but feel a surge of trust the girl is placing on her. Taking her hand, she firmly shakes the creamy white hand. She can't believe how soft and supple the small hand feels in her grasp, and an incredible wave of adoration flows into her. After she releases Myosha's hand, she quickly dons a pair of baby blue gloves, reaching nearly to her elbows.

"I am ready to return to my ship, Colonel Myosha Huron of the Colonial Fleet. When your Commander Florus is ready to receive me, I will meet with her. Besides, you have much to tell her first, yes?"

With a sly grin, Myosha turns and unlocks the door.

"Is that bad?"

Through the veil, Myosha can barely discern a devious grin on Kreysta as she silently shrugs and steps into the corridor. With a guard trailing behind Myosha, she leads the pilot back to her ship and instructs the guards to treat her as a distinguished emissary, not prisoner.

"Kreysta! If you need anything, these guards are instructed to notify myself or my Commander of your needs."

With a subtle bow at the waist, she disappears under her ship and up the ladder.

Arriving back on the bridge, she gets a status update and mentions they will be jumping in an hour to a safe site the Third Gemenon Fleet is massed. Nodding, she barely has time to grab a cup of tea when Commander Florus peeks in on the bridge and beckons Myosha to her conference room. Joining the commander of the destroyer Gryphon's Charge, he introduces himself as she gets caught up.

"Good to meet you Colonel Huron, I'm Major Hemic. Your commander has everything, but what can we do to support the Titanica?"

With her eyes plastered wide open at the question, she represses her urge to sound stupid or shrug ignorantly.

"Well for starters, we have a dangerous amount of excess stock on our support craft. After rearming, we should still have too much ammo and resources stowed on those lightly armed craft. I imagine you could use more rounds, supplies and water between the missile boat and three destroyers?"

Commander Florus nods and interjects.

"The destroyer Caprican Rising was fully rearmed before we jumped, and we are getting the missile boat Argos rearmed before we jump again. All ships called in damage control procedures were underway Colonel. Sorry I had you playing Colonial diplomat, but she seemed to take to you. You can brief me afterwards."

The major shuffles nervously in place.

"As for our needs, all destroyers called in that all fires were under control, and repairs underway. We weren't as damaged as we predicted, thanks to you. I wanted to meet you personally Colonel, as we will be getting very close from now on. I'll coordinate through you for whatever support you require from us. The Battlestars Damocles and Poseidon are fully armed and ready, despite three scrapes with those basestars, but support ships are hard-pressed scrounging together supplies. All the active depots are either destroyed or empty. We had a rumor that a few of the decommissioned depots might be still have stock, so we made this run. We think there are spies amongst the fleet, but we have no idea how. Better yet, our recon reports many supply depots are still intact on the colonies, but the Cylons have amassed a sizeable force on each colony."

Shaking her head, Commnader Florus sighs.

"Retaking a colony is a distant possibility for now. Let's finish the repairs and get underway. It won't take these toasters very long to come looking for us after the bashing we gave them."

As the major departs, Commander Florus motions to join her on the bridge. As they walk around the status board, she leans over and whispers over the table.

"They're in pretty bad shape despite what their spirits say. The Cylons are destroying the support craft then attacking the battlestars afterwards. Those support craft are essential for an effective perimeter defense strategy, a strategy the new battlestars were specifically designed around. The mass of cover fire a destroyer brings allows a battlestar to concentrate fire on a more powerful opponent. Without them, we need 25 to 45 percent more fighters to make up for their lack of cover fire. This was a dilemma we discussed in advanced tactical college, a chink in our defense plans no one can counter in an extended war. A battlestar without destroyers or missile boats backing them up is living off borrowed time. An older battlestar was built to take on Basestars of the old era and go toe to toe with them. These new behemoths are in a category of their own. We proved today the effectiveness of the strategy, but I don't see how we can do it without their support."

Myosha dwells on the tactical revelations her CO provides and feels a fearful aura of doom creeping over their situation. A pang of jealousy rubs at her, when she realizes she should have attended those very same war colleges; but thanks to her old CO his FITREP scores always prevented her from the selection process. As she gets back into the flow of the bridge, Doneatha finally comes back to her for a briefing over their guest. Myosha controls her body language and pulls her commander off to the side.

"Her name is Kreysta and she's not from our region of space, but she hasn't revealed exactly aware. She's not from around here both in time and space. She's been locked in some sort of hyper-sleep by her ship, and she never told me if the ship woke her up or she woke up on her own."

Taking a sip of her tea, she finds the strength to continue.

"She has an interesting perspective on the Cylons from what little she's seen, and it can really rile you up if you don't have an open mind. She is from a higher technological level than us, that I believe, but I've seen no physical proof. And more importantly, we're not the first humans she's had contact with. She's wearing her veil because of her prior contact with humans went badly, or at least that's what I feel."

Pacing in front of Doneatha, she gnaws on her lower lip and finally stops to address her commander.

"Have you ever got the feeling you were being tested? Not physically, but morally and ethically? That's how I felt when talking to her. She told me some personal details about herself, and I think she's testing my character on how much I'll reveal to you, my superior."

Taken back by her revelation, Commander Florus sits back and ponders her words before speaking.

"Do you see any tactical or strategic value to telling me right now?"

Myosha spends a minute chewing on her inner lip.

"I see a tactical and long term strategic value in establishing a rapport with her, here and now. Something is telling me to gain and maintain her trust; and if that means not sharing every tiny minute secret she told me, then I think we'll be better off in the long run if she's our ally."

Nodding, Doneatha gently pats Myosha's hand.

"Then proceed with your best judgement Colonel. If anything changes that it can or will affect your ship or crew, then I expect you to come to me immediately."

She numbly nods in agreement.

"That is never going to be an issue Commander. Perhaps you should invite her to a private dinner with a couple of the executive officers and spend some time getting to know her? She might open up and tell us more. I think she got very talkative because she's lonely with only her ship to talk to."

Taken back, Doneatha nods and mulls over the idea.

As the clock ticks down the tempo on the bridge picks up and the cargo ship Coeus reports cargo download complete, the small fleet assumes their departure configuration. Departing first, the destroyers jump followed by the missile boat and cargo ships. Lastly the Titanica lumbers ahead and joins the fleet. As the fleet checks in to the battlestar, the all clear sounds and they roar towards the rendezvous coordinates.

Commander Florus suppresses her elation for linking up with a pair of battlestars. She assumed command of the Titanica, and she pondered if some admiral would strip her command upon seeing the aged trophy. Dismissing the thought, she reasoned that her feelings and pride should never take precedence over the necessities of war. As they approached the small field of asteroids surrounding the rogue planet Medusa, she orders the launch of Gold Swindler squad and three raptors to lead the fleet into the field. Doneatha feels a dreadful welling in the pit of her stomach as they enter a noticeably clear corridor through the field. As the minutes fly by, they travel a twisting path designed to limit the speed and volume of enemy craft which can enter at once. Despite the tactical superiority of the location, she couldn't fight the feeling that something was off. Missile batteries should be lighting them up, and viper or raptor scouts should be verifying their identities. With complete silence at every turn, Doneatha knew things had turned horribly bad for the rogue colonial fleet assembled in this unlikely hiding place. After 25 minutes of twisting and turning, the horrific fate of the Third Gemenon Fleet was revealed. In what should have been a network of space stations, cruisers, and battlestars instead glowing masses of debris and wreckage is spread out in a large vacant area of space. Devoid of the protective asteroids, the area seemed miraculously vacant, and there was little fighter wreckage. Signaling the destroyers, she painfully speaks.

"I'm sorry Commander Gallion. Let's assume a defensive posture and we'll keep the FTLs spun up while we search for survivors and supplies. We're sending our escape coordinates now."

Doneatha can feel the remorse in his distant acknowledgement of her command.

Myosha found the heaviness of their duties stifling. With a round the clock salvage operation underway, the crews of the destroyers were getting a unique opportunity to train under the famous Red Demeter Salvage team. Techniques refined under years of past scrutiny and failures were thrust on the somber survivors of the Gemenon Fleet. Another small miracle occurred after the first few hours of salvage: survivors. It started with a dozen trapped in a blistered bulkhead, until they began to recover pilots knocked unconscious in their vipers and raptors. While Myosha franticly buzzed through the flight deck receiving the wounded and damaged craft, their bewildered guest approached her with a guard in tow. Stressed and exhausted, she tries to bury it enough to remain as cordial and welcoming as humanly possible. With a motioning of her hand, she has the guard wait a distance away as Kreysta speaks.

"I heard on the COM. I'm sorry. How is the recovery of survivors coming along?"

With her wits stretched to the breaking point she focuses on her clipboard, directing ships along and supplies to the storage bays.

"Sporadic at best. We find them as we search for supplies."

Kreysta nods heavily.

"Don't you have the technology to scan for them amongst the debris?"

With a ridiculous contortion of her face, she shakes her head.

"I wish! There's so many bodies floating out there, we have to just leave them behind and keep searching."

A surviving viper from the Poseidon is pulled along and Myosha directs it to the farthest available catapult. She glances up and watches Kreysta staring at the recovered ships and equipment buzzing by with what seems like tears in her eyes. She hears her inhale sharply, and she looks up to see her take a small communicator from her pocket. Barking out orders in an unknown language, she turns to Myosha as she finishes. A distinctive whine erupts from Kreysta's ship and the running lights slowly ignite from front to rear. A massive armored plate retracts into the top of the ship, revealing the cockpit through a large pane of glass.

"Well, it appears I can finally offer my assistance."

Pulling the portable airlocks out of storage in the Coeus, they attach them to a dozen raptors while Kreysta begins an exhaustive search of the debris field. As each raptor is ready, it jets out of the Titanica's pod and is directed to the debris field. Breaking up into shifts, the salvage operation continues for three days until every intact nuclear missile is stowed and the fleet has exhausted every possibility of recovering survivors. Kreysta stayed in her seat piloting her ship for forty-nine hours until she was certain there were no more survivors to be found. When she returned, she informed Myosha she was going to sleep and she'd notify her when she woke. Jumping to their safe coordinates, they drudged aimlessly towards depot MR278, and the unforeseeable future.

Doneatha gathers all the commanders in her conference room, and seals the door. Opening up the colonial regulations and law books, she lays each open for the five surviving commanders to review. Doneatha clears her throat before addressing the leaders.

"We have an important decision to make before we arrive at MR278. By all accounts, we are the last free ships in the colonies. I'm sure there are more, but we need to become unified in our operations until we link up. We have several options available, but in my professional opinion, I believe we should regroup our command structure under the Maconian structure."

Commander Tobber sighs wearily.

"I'd like to say for the record that only the Colonial Command can authorize a promotion to Admiral, but I do see the necessity to establish a proper chain of command. We cannot function effectively as long as we are six individual commanders."

Commander Hemic, who was flipping through the regulations stops reading and brings the book down into the middle of the table. Pointing to a specific section, he booms out reciting the regulation.

"In the event forces are isolated from command and control for extended periods, leadership will establish and maintain a proper chain of command and continue the mission to the best of their abilities.

"Further more…

"Temporary combat promotions can be effected to maintain the leadership structure for command and operational purposes."

"I believe assigning one of us as a temporary Admiral is both legal and essential to our success. We cannot act like it's a political post, so once we determine who the Admiral is, we MUST ACT as if that person was assigned that rank and position by Colonial Command itself. Anything less and this won't work."

Commander Tobber immediately chimes in.

"And we must be unanimous on this! What we decide now cannot be undone. This person in all intents and purposes will be our Fleet officer until we link up with command or a more senior admiral is found. Period."

Nodding in agreement, the officers pass weary glances around the table. Reviewing each of their career schools and courses, years of service, they finally agree on two candidates. As the four remaining officers dwell on the decision they must make, they lay the admiral ranks on the table confounded by the task at hand. They drift between service records and career accomplishments. An uneasy silence descends as the two candidates sit in a corner of the room discussing the best way to deal with their supply issues. The four commanders stare at each other exhausted. Three hours pass, until they sit quietly staring at the Admiral shoulder ranks. As they try to reengage the subject, they jerk suddenly as the rank begins to slide across the table by its own accord. All breathing stops as they watch the rank slides effortlessly across the table. Command Hemic glances under the table, then back to the top terrified. They quietly watch the rank slide across the personnel files, first Commander Tobber's, then onto Commander Florus's. In terrified amazement, the rank comes to rest and stops. Looking at each other, they finally breathe and sit back. None of them want to be the first to break the silence, and the tension signals Doneatha and Commander Hemic to turn back to the table. Nodding to each other, Doneatha tentatively addresses them.

"Are we done?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Gisela Feronus rode her raptor out of the trans-spacial jump while powering down all her systems. With minimal power, she lets her previous momentum carry her into the cloud of dust and rocks surrounding Depot MR190. Her previous missions to three depot sites taught her to use just her reaction thrusters rather her full engines to reduce the attention her ship would draw from the enemy DRADIS. Spinning and tumbling like the surrounding debris and rocks, she calmly focuses on her instruments while using a separately powered scanner attached to her ship. As it spun seemingly uncontrollably, it softly scans the surrounding field while using no more power than a toaster. The device was just one of many miraculous items the teams on the Titanica were developing daily. The experimental model was equipped with labs and construction areas no battlestar ever had before or afterwards. Many theorized that Command was considering an exploration division when the Titanica was made; but with its loss, so did those hopes and dreams.

After two hours of bumping and grinding against the rocks and debris, she folds to a secondary location before jumping back to the Titanica. Arriving, she notices two other raptors are on final as she exits. Parked beside the cold green wedge ship of Kreysta's, she glance her direction and notices the hatch sealed tightly. Taking that as a sign she's asleep, she glances down at her watch and realizes it still early morning on the ship. With the blue data module from her trip in hand, she rushes up to the bridge. Handing the blue block to the tactical officer on duty, she reports in. Myosha smiles meekly seeing her, and returns the Lieutenant's salute.

"Good news or bad?"

Shrugging, Gisela points at the deck officer processing the data.

"Only he can tell us that. I didn't see a frack'in thing while I was rolling and tumbling. I know that it's a proven method for evading detection, but I feel like a fifth wheel on these missions to that scanner. Chuckling Myosha pats the junior officer's shoulder.

"Join the club! When you get to this position, you'll appreciate your time in the cockpit."

From the tactical officer's station, he bellows out.

"Colonel! The scans are ready for your review."

Leading Gisela to the central display, she brings up the fruits of her 2 hour scan. At first the only discernable objects are rocks and dust clouds, until finally Myosha highlights the floating station. Scrutinizing the area, she nods her head in approval.

"Well done. It appears that we are the first to it. There would be substantial clear areas if a ship tried docking recently. As she turns to the navigator, the tactical officer yells to look back at the display. Rewinding the recording, Myosha watches in horror as a single Cylon fighter jumps into the far edge of the field, scans the entire area and jumps back out after seven minutes. Commending the officer, she turns to Gisela.

"Good work Lieutenant. The Admiral and I will confer. Get some chow and rest."

Heartbroken at the turn of events, Gisela leaves and makes her way to her bunk and collapses in a well-deserved nap.

Drifting over the tactical displays and technical readouts, Admiral Florus sits with her key commanders discussing the singular decision at hand. With all the plans laid out, Doneatha kept returning to the same question of whether or not the risk was worth it. With an unknown number of forces, the risk seemed excessive to half her staff while the other half felt it was warranted. For Doneatha it was an impasse.

"Commanders, until we can get some definitive numbers of their size and compliment, we can't move; the risk is too extreme."

Galen Tobber, a young commander in his mid-thirties with chestnut hair, struggles to contain his disagreement.

"But they could be just a patrol from a single basestar! We can handle it!"

Myosha couldn't help but input her opinions on the subject; she cared little for bureaucracy and even leas for pleasantries.

"And it could be a scout from a full division of basestars! We don't know for certain! It will be suicide to commit our forces to a supply run which we could have to hold off an unknown number and strength while our cargo ships strip the depot. Even if we just find and unload the essential items, we're still looking at 8 hours, minimum! They send a scout every 4 to 10 hours…very irregularly."

Across the table, Admiral Florus clears her throat and ends the debate.

"Enough. I can't risk the fleet in this manner. Until I see some definitive intel, resupply at this depot is impractical."

Commander Hemic stands to speak.

"How about that civilian pilot of yours? Doesn't she have some ultra-advanced ship and systems? Perhaps she can shine some light on the Cylon locations or disposition?"

Myosha raises her eyebrow having overlooked her value. Her sacrifice in recovering the survivors hardly went unnoticed by the fleet. The scuttlebutt among the fleet was far more reliable than wireless communications at times.

Admiral Florus nods.

"Not a bad idea. I will arrange a meeting with her tonight and discuss it. Colonel Huron? Would you please invite our guest to dinner in four hours? There will be eight of us attending…including you."

Myosha smiles cordially, remembering how much she hated formal functions.

As she approaches Bay 18, now renamed the 'Dragon's Den' for it was the berthing area for Kreysta's ship, she saw the guards were keeping a watchful eye on it from across the bay. Not only had she been accepted by the majority of the crew on the flight deck, even security viewed her as a member of the crew versus an outsider. Mentally noting to "discuss" it with their security commander afterwards, she strides up to the ship and pokes her head under the ship. From inside she clearly hears Kreysta talking endlessly, and it seems as if someone might be conversing with her, but she can't discern any other voice than Kreysta. Agitated, Kreysta continues bickering on, but Myosha can only discern a slight buzz in the air, but nothing more. Waiting a few minutes, Myosha clears her throat and calls out to her. After a few seconds delay, Kreysta's small voice beckons her to come up instead.

Wearing her veil, she adjusts her coveralls by zipping them up the rest of the way and walking out from under her ship to speak. Myosha gingerly tries to find the best avenue to ask their esteemed guest.

"Did I interrupt you talking to your ship?"

Kreysta looks at her strangely and then realizes what Myosha heard.

"Oh! Um…yes. I was talking to my ship. What can I help you with?"

Myosha responds realizing her attempt at small talk was a devastating failure.

"Yes…we…Admiral Florus would like you to join her…us for dinner. It is not much, but you can get the chance and sit down and meet the leaders of our fleet. Many people are still extremely thankful for your help."

Grinning warmly, she nods.

"It would be my pleasure. When will you come get me?"

Surprised, Myosha thinks rapidly and squeaks out.

"In four of our hours?"

Kreysta nods once again.

"I look forward to it. Be well."

Exchanging subtle bows, she disappears back into her ship and Myosha skips back to her quarters to make sure she has a dress uniform for the evening.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Myosha arrives at Bay 18 with ten minutes to spare. Adjusting her coat for the fifteenth time since she left the elevator, she sighs heavily and notes the security officer finally taking his job a bit more seriously by moving beside the bay to hang out chatting with the mechanics. Shaking her head, she strides to the green ship and peeks underneath to see if the door is open. As if reading her mind, Kreysta steps out of her ship and closes the hatch behind her. Dressed in her long ceremonial robes and a bluish green veil, she smiles underneath. Carrying a tote bag, she bows before she speaks.

"I talked to my ship and he insisted I stick to tradition and wear my ceremonial robes. I honestly have very few outfits for this. Before I went on my last trip out, I gave away the majority of my clothes. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining, the majority of your fleet have but the clothes on their backs. If you don't mind, I would like to take a shower after dinner. I can get clean on my ship, but bathing in water is a luxary I can't pass up."

Myosha nods and leads her towards the lift.

"That's fine with me. My crew was blessed, for the most part. The majority of them had just one uniform with them and an 80/20 split of clothes, with the majority being civilian attire. They traded out some of their clothes for military uniforms. Crazy times we're in."

As the doors of the lift close and they stand together alone in the elevator, Kreysta leans over and whispers to her.

"I know it doesn't seem like it, but this isn't the end for your race. I know of several species which rebounded back from wars far worse than this. What your people do in the here and now is incredibly important though. Sometimes you have to run to fight another day."

Myosha pushes back the tears and swipes at them with her arm as they spill out from her eyes.

"I'm sorry. We've lost so many of our families and friends…its hard not go a day without thinking about them."

And without warning, Myosha feels a tight grip around her chest and she lets out a small "eep" sound as she is overwhelmed by Kreysta hugging her with her heart and soul. Myosha feels an intense warming glow flow into her, satiating her loss and refilling her strength. As the lift stops, she hardly notices Kreysta release her and stand beside her as the doors open. She hesitates to move, too overwhelmed by the small woman's act of love.

Kreysta asks if she's going to follow, and Myosha numbly nods and sheepishly strolls forward wih her. Wipinng her cheeks dry, she leads their guest to the diningroom and everone rises as she enters. Bowing politely, she lets Myosha lead her to her chair and sits. Tucking her bag under her chair, she ensures her robes are in the proper position, and hesitates grabbing her veil. With a deep sigh she lifts the veil from her face and flips it over her head. Myosha can read her anxiety over revealing her face to people. Myosha is surprised by the minute changes of everyone at the table seeing her full beauty and she clears her throat shaking everyone back to their proper manners.

They enjoy a dinner of baked chicken, potatoes, and green vegetables, probably the last time the fleet will enjoy the luxary of real food as they know it. Though Kreysta had sustained herself on artificial food for longer she cared to admit, she knew it was a difficult notion for most humans to swallow. She reluctantly decided to address the issue with the assembled leaders. It went far better than she imagined it would, as they had to admit that the war was far from temporary or short term. As they are finishing their dinner, Kreysta is relieved they relaize that they need to build or acquire agricultural and livestock ships. Common in the outlying mining colonies, it was usually impractical financially, any closer to the colonies. Noticing their heads buzzing with ideas, Kreysta pats herself on the back for getting the ball rolling before it was too late. As the conversations buzz around the table, Admiral Florus clears her throat and wipes her mouth with her napkin before she speaks to Kreysta.

"I have to be completley honest with you Kreysta. This impromptu dinner was hardly without purpose. We have a depot which could harbor a vast amount of needed supplies, but it turns out our enemy is using it as bait. We're fairly sure the trap is for us, but we don't know how strong their forces might be. It may be just one basestar, but it could be far more, which would put us in a seriosu tactical disadvantage."

Myosha tires of the pussyfooting around the question and decides to just go forward.

"What my admiral is trying to say is…well we're hoping you might be of some assistance once again."

Intrigued, Kreysta sets her fork down and sits back in her chair as Myosha continues.

"Your systems are far more sophisticated than ours and do you think you can track the ship back to its source?"

Kreysta looks to Doneatha, then back to Myosha before speaking.

"I have the systems and skills to do what you ask. My people have been using interdimensional spacial fold drives for eons and we're familiar with tracing the residual signatures they leave behind. Don't take this the wrong way, but your systems are extremely crude compared to my technological standard; and tracking a single trail back to the source shouldn't be too much of a problem. What I ask you though, is what then? Do you attack or do you run and avoid them?"

Admiral Florus speaks before any of her officers can speak for her.

"It depends on their numbers and types of ships they can bring to bear. Depending on the results, we might fight a battle here, or we might strike at them first at their location while our cargo ships clean up here. I'd have to make that determination after I have the facts, though."

Noding Kreysta sarcastically replies.

"Yah…I thought that is what you would say. Well let me put it another way. What if I could offer you a safe harbor…for good. I could get your people to a safe part of the galaxy where your Cylons wouldn't look for you, and give you the benefit of time to rebuild your civilization in peace? Here's the catch: you can never come back to this section of space ever again. You'd be too far away to jump back in your lifetime, or at least for the next fifty or so generations."

Commander Hemic sets his glass down as he chuckles.

"Right. You said your ship was too broken to return home. How are you going to get us there, if you can't get there yourself?"

Nodding, Kreysta agrees with him. Myosha notices a slight hesitation on Kreysta to respond, and she intercedes as she begins to speak.

"Your ship is fixed?"

Nodding dramatically, Kreysta sighs loudly.

"When I was flying around recovering your survivors, my ship took it upon himself to fly with his scoops wide open. He accumulated enough of the materials and trace elements from the debris zones to resume repairs. For the past three weeks, he's been very busy and it seems he estimates completion in the next couple of weeks. Now, I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to pull this off, but I believe I can adjust your existing drives to make a long fold to my section of known space."

Major Braka scrutinizes her idea and asks insistently.

"Are we talking hundreds of light-years away?"

Shaking her head, Kreysta replies.

"More like a hundred and fifty…thousand."

A round of incredulous laughs fills the room. Except for the Admiral and Myosha, everyone refused to believe the concept of traveling a vast distance in one lifetime. As the commanders and majors buzz amongst themselves, Doneatha asks her guest as straight faced as she can muster, silencing everyone in turn.

"What do you need from me?"

Taken back, Kreysta pauses as she mulls the question over.

"Well, first…I have no idea how you even get your stuff to work. You fold space, but can't go more than a handful of light-years? Something is wrong here. Distance is not so much a factor for a space-fold, but your detection and jump computers are always a severely limiting factor. Please tell me you don't do those computations manually."

Reading the expressions across the room, Kreysta lays her head on her palm and shakes her head slowly.

"Well that explains a lot. The living mind has limits on how much math it can process, to say the least formulate a concise mental image between two interdimensional points. Even my people struggle at three and this jump will require 1265 simultaneous intersections to avoid hundreds of astronomical anomalies between here and there."

Kreysta turns to Myosha grinning.

"Yes, I had my ship calculate the distance and all the particulars."

Turning back to the rest of the table, Kreysta continues.

"There's gravity wells, micro black-holes, rogue planets, neutron stars, and so many more things that I can't even begin to discuss. I'm still weeks away from executing this plan, so how about you get me your literature on what you know about your fold drives and I'll figure out what you know about it, and I can go from there? After that, I'll tackle getting your systems up to snuff to integrate with mine. Does that sound okay?"

Doneatha nods heavily.

"Now about your trace? I'll do it, but I'd like to take someone with me to coordinate with your bridge. Someone who has the authority to make the big decisions me might have to make when we get there, the tactical knowledge to ask the right questions…you get the point? I need a command officer with me."

Kreysta glances around the table and finally stops on Myosha.

"Her. She has my trust and I don't want too many nosey techs looking around my ship while I fly."

Myosha nods.

"We do have a portable long-range communications unit I can take."

Doneatha hesitates.

"I'd like to discuss it first with my advisors before I agree. I'll get back to you in a few hours."

Kreysta nods cordially.

"I understand."

After enjoying a delicious iced cake dessert, the conversation turns to a concert planned on the Titanica in a few days. Kreysta mentions how she was truly looking forward to it, surprising many in the room. She laughs off their disbelief.

"Despite my non-human condition, I actually enjoy human poetry, music, your company, cities and your vast technological accomplishments. My people are extremely long lived, almost god-like in your eyes. You have such a unique perception of the universe because you cannot fathom the length of time which the universe operates in. The rise and fall of mountains happens in the span of one my people's lives, while you are confined with the fleeting moment of the here and now. We see great value in that."

Myosha shares in the awkward silence their guest creates.

Kreysta sits idly by as the commanders and staff begin to nervously begin to discuss the future of the fleet. As each contemplates attack plans and strategies, a few begin to consider the scrolls of Pythia and searching out the thirteenth colony as a temporary refuge. Myosha notices Kreysta repress a grin, and decides to mention it later. Snapping back from her distant place, Myosha decides now is as good of a time as any to get Kreysta back to her room to shower. Rising she subtly motions for Kreysta to join her and she nods approvingly.

"Thank you Admiral and distinguished commanders of the fleet. It has been a wonderful evening, and I really look forward to the coming concert. Good evening."

After setting her veil over her face, she shakes hands with everyone and follows Myosha to her quarters. After the massive door is secured, Kreysta removes her veil and sets it on Myosha's desk. Rustling her hair, she flips her robes off and folds them before putting them on a nearby chair. Myosha excuses herself to use the toilet and when she returns, Kreysta stands in her gossamer robes, while all of her clothes lay folded on the chair instead. Myosha cannot hide her embarrassment seeing the lithe naked form through the virtually translucent folds of cloth. Bowing respectfully, Myosha gets out of Kreysta's way and sits on the chair unsure why she reacted as she did. From the shower Kreysta yells out to Myosha.

"I hope you know that I am no god, and I truly value your people's influence in the universe. You may not realize your effect on it from a span of a hundred years, but in thousands of years…you have such a dramatic effect that even my people can't ignore it. We have preserved species like yours before, and dedicated parsecs of territory for you to develop at your own rate and direction. All we ask is to allow us to stand alongside you as you develop. We take notes, write papers, record your accomplishments…we are trying to learn from your mistakes because you make huge ones in very short periods of time. We make the same mistakes over thousands of years, with the same if not worse catastrophic effects. To comprehend the behavior and circumstances which led to your great mistake, means we can either avoid or reverse the event all together when we are confronted with a similar conundrum. This has all happened before on other worlds and civilizations, and will happen again. Your people aren't that unique."

Myosha shivers hearing her last words and nods. She wanders around her room and stops at her reading corner. Anger and confusion fills her as she discovers the picture of Colonel Burrell and his family once again propped up prominently. As she looks around the room for where it could have come from, she hears Kreysta giggle and try to stifle her laughs. As the water shuts off, Myosha curses under her breath trying to comprehend how the picture got into her room from the sealed boxes in the hold three decks down. As she rummages through her boxes of books to see if it was left in one by accident, she stops and jumps as Kreysta suddenly appears beside her. Wearing shower shoes and a towel wrapped tightly around her midsection, she looks down at Myosha sitting on the floor.

"I'm sorry about laughing at you, but it seems your people are incapable of hearing the things some of my people are specifically attuned to. Would you like some advice? Leave his picture there. Set up a memorial for him and his family and acknowledge he is welcome in your place of worship and study. That's all most of them want…not to be forgotten and discarded as they were in life. Some were very restless and angry and they were responsible for the deaths of some of your crew. In their defense, they claimed they were spies and were trying to kill everyone on the ship. Oh! Colonel Burrell also keeps talking about spies walking among your people, but I have no idea what he's talking about. He is very adamant about this point though."

Myosha stares at Kreysta in disbelief as she turns her head to the reading corner and nods as if she's listening to someone talking to her.

"He says that Ensign Gayla Cellar, the blonde communications technician, was no accident. She was planting a device to destroy your ship somehow. He says there are others but you'd remember her by name."

Myosha shakes her head in disbelief, and slowly the crazy events happening all around the ship seem to fall into place and make sense. Taken back by her words, Myosha's eyes work their way up Kreysta's legs and she can't help but notice the definitive muscular lines and concealed strength hidden in the tiny girl. Her eyes discern an emerald shimmer across Kreysta's pale white skin as she struts seductively towards her. Myosha starts to sputter and fumble her words and Kreysta smiles and kneels down in front of her. Brushing Myosha's cheek with the tips of her fingers, she whispers tenderly as wild electricity sparks shoot through her.

"When your people love with all your heart, it's the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. Truly the most valuable quality you bring to the universe. Even my people don't have this…and that is most horrible thing about my people. They lack passion and love which makes them cold and distant."

Kreysta smiles alluringly and extends her hand to the bewildered officer and lays the damp towel on top of the desk. Taking her to the recessed bed, she slips her hands under Myosha's shirt by tugging the ends out of her trousers. Relishing the feel of her skin under her hands, Kreysta leans up into Myosha and steals a quick kiss before turning her attention to the gorgeously fine skin hidden under Myosha's shirt. Nibbling and nuzzling, she continues pulling the shirt higher until Myosha finally tears the article up and off her. Dragging her towards the bed's edge, she sits down and frantically unbuckles her belt and nearly rips the pants in half getting them off Myosha. Dragging her panties down with the pants, she thrusts her mouth into the officer's abdomen and greedily suckles at the skin. Myosha has no idea how she got her bra off, but she tosses the article away from her and lavishes the attention Kreysta gives her body. Making Myosha groan in delight, Kreysta finds her center and latches on to her sex. Myosha never imagined sex with another woman could be so fantastic. Having only a dozen relationships in her life, none of them prepared her for Kreysta's experienced tongue. She loses track of how much time passes as they take turns atop or underneath the other. Hours blur past, and she finally drifts into sleep land panting and exhausted.

Answering her door chime, Admiral Florus doesn't bother slipping her overcoat back on and opens the door to find Captain Forester and Lieutenant Helms patiently waiting for an audience. As if she was reading their thoughts, she shakes her head and welcomes them inside."

"I know I've been promising you two a private meeting for over two weeks, but there's never a good time here. So just get to it, and let's get this over with now."

Pushing in a cart of books, they set up a projector and begin deconstructing their research.

Captain Forester begins by reviewing the history of the prophets.

"Okay. Suranna was the sister of Pythia, and they both foretold the exodus of the human race, but they saw two different futures. They both adamantly believed they saw the real future of the human race, and saw their other sister as a liar, because they believed that they both couldn't be right. It was said they moved to opposite corners of the colonies and never spoke another word to each other for the remainder of their days."

Lieutenant Helms starts where the captain leaves off at.

"Suranna and Pythia both prophesized the same statement:

'_All this has happened before. All this will happen again.'_

"This key statement makes everyone skeptical of the accuracy of these two prophets. Now she spoke of the 'Ship of fools' and scholars have always been confused by this. She said:

'_Humanity will escape the wraith of the forgotten child on ships built by fools. The great deceiver will ensure humanity's destruction, and the forgotten child's minions will eradicate civilization.'_

'_All this has happened before. All this will happen again. It cannot be prevented, nor will it be stopped.'_

"Additionally,

'_The survivors will be given the Caleuche and must tame the ancient ship in order to defeat the minions of evil. They will hide among the dusty stars until the ship captain tames the lost titan.'_

The captain intercedes.

"That part we believe refers to us and our ship, the Titanica. Now this is the interesting part.

'_Heed the aid of the Sleeping Dragon. She will offer her service at a steep price, and you must never offer more than you are willing to pay.'_

Captain Forester resumes immediately.

"The prophecy foretold the 'reawakening' of the sleeping green dragon…'Krisa'…and her wraith upon humanity. Apparently Apollo 'accidentally' woke her and begged for her to aid him and his father against the titans and free the human race. It is said she took the form of a beautiful nymph…or Nymphai…and felt a kinship to the "lesser" races against the evils of the "ancient gods." She gave two rules for the lords of Kobol to obey: No man must touch her out of lust, and no man may view her nakedness while she bathed. That is the part that keyed me onto Kreysta being the dragon. Once they successfully defeated the titans, Zeus tried "seducing" her and angered her greatly. The details are omitted as to exactly what occurred, but it is stated that Zeus violated both rules. She raised four major cities to the ground trying to kill Zeus, but he was "extremely agile for a man his age." In the end, Athena seduced and/or tricked Krisa to return to her long slumber among the "dusty clouds of space." Her hatred for the lords of Kobol knows no bounds, and it was believed she would extend her wraith to humans for what Zeus and Athena did to her. This is the key warning Suranna wrote:

"_The dragon will return. Never awaken her."_

"_Her anger for humanity has two faces of a coin."_

"_If the dragon returns during a time of prosperity, she will bring ruin; but if she comes during the time of exodus, she could be humanity's greatest ally, and destroyer." _

"_Krisa will return. Never awaken her."_

"_Never seek a safe port while the dragon travels with you. She will roost in your rafters and lay eggs of malcontent."_

"In the line '_greatest ally, and destroyer,'_ scholars believe that it was a typo when she said "and" not "or." This use confuses scholars; so in the end, they believed it had to be an ancient mistake of scribes, further diminishing its value."

Lieutenant Helms resumes when the captain stops speaking.

"This is a very interesting portion: The search for a new home for the human race.

"_They will seek the thirteenth colony, but only adversity will they find. The fools of misfortune will never find this home but a new home could be offered if they tame the Sleeping Dragon."_

After forty-five minutes, the Admiral rubs her temples desperately trying to dispel the effects of sleep deprivation on her mind. Rereading the Surranna prophecy, she hopes to gain a better understanding of her officers' point of view. With a weighted expulsion of air, she takes one deep breath before speaking.

"So you're telling me Kreysta is the same person mentioned in the Pythia scrolls?"

Shaking their heads in unison, they fight over who will speak first, with the captain winning out.

"Negative, it was Suranna, but essentially yes. We believe Kreysta is the Green Dragon she warned humanity about."

The admiral fights a headache approaching faster than a space jump.

"I hate to burst your bubble, but that woman has done more than you're obviously aware of to help us from the moment she's come onto this ship. We would be DEAD right now if it weren't for her."

As the pair begin to beseech her, she stops them in their tracks.

"I hear you, I see where you drew logical conclusions, and I admit some of them have serious merit, but I cannot not act in good conscious against her. She is a serious ally out here, when we have no home port to call our own. What do you two propose to do with this insight into her identity?"

The captain looks to the lieutenant and then shrugs.

"Confront her with the evidence, ask her if it's true. We need to be extremely cautious in dealing with her."

The lieutenant breathes softly before he speaks.

"What scares me the most is that she leveled four cities trying to kill Zeus of old. With everything we know and some poetic exaggeration , if this is her, what is she truly capable of inside our ship?"

Nodding Doneatha exhales once more dramatically.

"Let me sleep on this information for a few days, and I'll let my prayers guide me. And…speak of this to no one else. Period. That's the last thing I need. You're dismissed."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Waking suddenly, Myosha's eyes dart around in a panic as she feels a slightly cool body wrapped around her back and an arm draped over her naked waist and thigh. Her heart races until she recalls the evening prior and the past four hours. As she sorts her emotions and memories, she relaxes and feels Kreysta stir behind her, reacting to her momentary shock. Feeling her tense and stretch against her bare back, she feels the girl's hands and arms roam over her and gently nuzzle against the nappe of her neck. Questioning her moral and ethical choices, she is stopped as Kreysta slides out of bed and begins dressing. Grasping a sheet to cover her nakedness, Myosha longingly watches the beauty slowly don each article of clothing, like a bard reciting a passionate sonnet. Her lithe form defies all of Myosha's preconceptions of how a beautiful woman should be defined. With small breasts and a tight build leaving no room for an ounce of fat, her voice deceived the casual observer of her true age. Myosha imagines she would be seen as a girl in her late teens maybe twenty, but too much wisdom was contained in the small woman. Hypnotized by her muscles as Kreysta moves, Myosha feels her weary body begin to reignite watching Kreysta dress. As Kreysta zips up her flight suit, the most common attire Myosha had seen her wear, she smiles at Myosha and raises her eyebrows expectantly.

"As much as I wouldn't mind seeing you escort me back to my ship naked, I don't think your admiral would look kindly on that behavior. She is a very conservative soul, but a brilliant mind."

Blinking in confusion, Myosha snaps out of her catatonia and recovers her clothes scattered on the deck. Quickly dressing, she runs a brush through her hair before guiding Kreysta down to her ship. The guard at her ship was now a woman in her mid-thirties, armed, and positioned so that no one could sneak up behind her. Myosha mentally notes to commend the security chief for assigning her to the post. Though she had a chair to sit in, she seemed to use it as a place for her pack and water bottle. Walking Kreysta to the hatch underneath, she ensures she enters safely; and as she turns to leave, Kreysta pokes her head out and steals a kiss from Myosha. What might have been a short sweet kiss, becomes a long passionate exchange leaving Myosha overcome by a surge of passion. Breaking away, she wanders around the ship, wrestling her feelings and emotions for the alien woman. Returning to her room, Myosha gets in a four hour nap before waking to shower and take her post in the morning. As she gets her pants on, a chime at her door has her tucking her shirt in, as she opens. She nearly jumps to attention seeing Admiral Florus waiting outside.

"Can I come in for a minute? I want to talk to you about last night?"

Myosha's face turns bright red, and she fumbles madly for words. Before she can get a coherent sentence out of her mouth, Doneatha continues.

"Before I went to sleep, I finally got that meeting with Captain Forester. He and Helms really dug into the history books and discovered some amazing things, and I believe they are…for the most part…accurate. I really grilled them and I could see no fault in their research. Listen, Kreysta really trusts you and I don't want to jeopardize the relationship you two have formed, but...it seems she's not kidding about being long-lived. You are welcome to review the research, they wrote a serious report on their findings and beliefs. What I'm trying to say is that do you think she's deceiving us in any way? Can this be a trap of any kind? I know I'm asking a lot, but I am leaning towards authorizing you to go with her on that flight. Despite everything the captain has told me, I'm still leaning towards allowing you to act as my full-time liaison with Kreysta."

Myosha, thankful she didn't put her foot in her mouth, sighs and paces uncomfortably before her commander.

"Admiral, I haven't seen anything which would give me even a suspicion of deception on her part. She has been overly helpful, painfully honest, and extremely insightful on what has been going on around here. Last night, after she showered, she told me she'd received "intel" on why Ensign Gayla Cellar and a few others died."

The admiral adjusts her stance and Myosha repositions to in front of her. Using her hands to soften the insanity factor of her explanation, she speaks slowly, emphasizing key points.

"It seems this ship…for the lack of a better term…is haunted by the original crew. I have been struggling against Colonel Burrell's antics since I arrived, from him ringing the doorbell insistently, hitting me on the back of the head, to making his picture reappear every time I leave the room or just turn my back! She confided in me that the spirits killed some of the crew before they could try and kill us, and that Gayla was attempting to plant a device to help the Cylons destroy us. She makes it sound like the ghosts are trying to protect us here, but each has their own unique quirks, like my friendly Colonel who just wants his own place in my corner for eternal remembrance. Since I did it, all the Frack'in bizarre stuff in my room stopped! She's offered to walk around the rest of the ship and find out how the remaining spirits want appeasement, and frankly, I am all for it. I'm fully aware of how insane this sounds, but there's really no other explanation right now."

Doneatha shakes her head and stop's Myosha from explaining further.

"You don't have to say another word. I get dozens of reports daily of weird and unexplained activity coming in from dozens of departments. In the bay she's in, I was getting a report a night. Now, it's been quiet since she has been on board."

Doneatha rubs the bridge of her nose and wipes her face downward.

"Once again, she proves to be invaluable to us, making my job even harder. Go ahead and join her on the tracking mission. I know your judgement isn't clouded in regards to her, so I leave it up to you to make the right call out there. I'm not a micro-manager so I leave it in your capable hands."

Doneatha turns and leaves out the room. As Myosha pauses to catch her breath, the Admiral sticks her head back into the room with a grin chuckling.

"Besides, it's not like you two are sleeping together or anything right?"

Sharing a laugh, the Admiral departs, leaving Myosha to collapse at her desk in terror. Throwing her head onto the desk she rests her head from the weight of her previous night's deeds. As she sits and contemplates whether or not she should tell Doneatha of the previous night, a shot glass of Colonel Burrell's slides across the desk and hits Myosha's arm. Myosha looks up, glances at the glass, and speaks to the room sarcastically.

"Thanks."

The admiral's plan kept it fairly simple. One raptor would hang out at the depot and would wait for the Cylon scout to appear. After they finished their scan, and jumped away, the raptor would follow suit and report in. According to Kreysta, it would take her no more than an hour to arrive at the depot and she would wait there until the scout returned. After he returned, and left, Kreysta would track him back to his base and we would report our intelligence back to the admiral. It was a sound and uncomplicated plan, but the time between the scouts departure and return was hardly definitive.

Myosha was given the next best seat in Kreysta's ship, the copilot's chair beside her. Without any buttons or control mechanisms, Myosha felt like an overpaid observer. As they sit on the flight deck waiting for the raptor to return, Myosha couldn't help but stare at the beautiful nymph who captured her heart. Watching her touch imaginary buttons in the open air of the cockpit, Myosha adores the way she simply brushes her finger at each point while most people press at it. With a large clear glass faceplate worn as glasses which wrapped around her face, it resembled a helmet's blast shield rather than glasses. She abruptly stops and grins at Myosha.

"Where are my manners?"

She reaches into a drawer and extracts a matching faceplate and hands it to her lover. Myosha tentatively slips on the glasses and Kreysta grins watching Myosha's face suddenly explode with emotion. All around her were gages, indicators, displays, and readouts fed from the ship. Shaking her head, Kreysta snickers.

"Concentrate just beyond the displays…like you want to see outside the ship."

Myosha nods and immediately gasps. In sheer disbelief, she looks around the flight deck as if the ship doesn't exist and can see minute details as if she was using her own eyes to look through the ship. Kreysta finds the breath to stop laughing long enough to speak.

"As long as the ship has a scanner or camera operational in that area, you can see it. He uses the system to star-navigate after we de-fold…or come out of a jump as you call it."

Myosha can't believe her eyes, and she lifts the glasses off and back onto her face trying to wrap her mind around the technology. As she plays with the glasses, Ensign Canoga Farness comes over the communications channel saying the scout raptor had returned. With a nod, Kreysta acknowledges the message and brings her ship to life. Lifting the ship off the deck, she hovers it along to the lift and to the upper flight deck. Myosha inhales sharply remembering her early years as a raptor pilot, and fights the shock of experiencing take-off without a cockpit. Accelerating to fantastic speeds, Myosha holds her breath as they fly past the end of the deck. Kreysta suppresses a laugh as she hears Myosha whisper louder than she intended.

"I can get used to this."

Accelerating, they leave the fleet behind and their protection. Myosha can hardly fathom the speeds the ship was reaching and wonders out loud.

"How fast are we going?"

Kreysta nods and speaks to the computer in her own tongue. Suddenly the numbers and writing Myosha couldn't read are instantly translated. Scanning the displays, she pauses on a steadily increasing number towards one-point zero-zero.

"What increments is this in? Distance per second?"

Kreysta shakes her head laughing.

"Try times the speed of light."

Kreysta laughs hysterically as the color drains away from Myosha watching the display increasingly speed up and blink past the speed of light and rapidly pass two.

"We…we're moving faster than the speed of light? Why aren't we splattered against the walls?"

Shaking her head, Kreysta subdues her laughter long enough to pat Myosha's arm reassuringly.

"If you want to fly among the stars with me, you're going to have to get used to coping with stuff you don't know or understand."

Myosha stares in disbelief as the display slows to three thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven. Kreysta takes a breath before commenting on their speed.

"I'm keeping it below five thousand. I don't want to draw too much attention when we arrive. I'll start slowing five minutes out and should get it well below zero point two-five when we coast into the area."

Myosha nods numbly. After forty minutes, the ship begins slowing and Myosha cannot break her dumbfounded stare. She nearly jumps hearing a young man's voice announce the system is clear of any small space craft. Kreysta snickers once again.

"Myosha, this is my long-time companion Bavor. Bavor, this is Myosha."

The ship instantly replies sarcastically.

"Your latest companion or just your latest conquest?"

Miffed, Kreysta slaps at the console.

"HEY! Be nice!"

She turns to Myosha and continues.

"Every so often I get tired of his sarcasm and invite someone along to travel with me."

Bavor retorts just as fast.

"News flash! You're not the most pleasant creature to contend with either. You'd think after a few eons we'd be right as rain, right? Instead we occasionally get on the other's nerves. If you want to go and rest, I have the watch. I'll notify you two as soon as things change."

Nodding, Kreysta takes off the glasses leads Myosha out of the cockpit and into the rest area.

Myosha excuses herself to use the latrine and returns to find Kreysta tucked into the bed compartment. Hanging on the wall opposite of the bed is her flight-suit and underclothes, and she proudly wears a grin.

"Despite all our antics, we're in safe hands. Come. I want to resume where we left off at last night."

Myosha steps up to the bed chamber and begins to unzip her flight suit. Kreysta scampers forward and shoos Myosha's hands away so she can undress her human lover. Zipping the suit open to the crotch, Kreysta slides her hands into the heavy garment and lets her hands roam deliciously on their own accord. Myosha, who had removed her boots while she was in the latrine, steps out of the flight suit and stands before her small lover in a simple light beige camisole and matching panties. With her undergarments nearly matching her skin tone, it made Kreysta purr seeing her. Myosha hooks her fingers into her panties and pulls them down leaving them on top of the pile of clothes. Kreysta stops her from removing the camisole, and instead Slides her face into Myosha's stomach. Planting small kisses as she pushes it up, she begins nuzzling Myosha's large C-cup breasts. Using her own breasts as a size comparison, Myosha's were huge compared to her small perky ones. Tossing the garment into the pile, she draws Myosha into her den and passionately envelopes her lover.

Pausing to let a man in his early sixties pass before her, the tall blonde follows immediately and enters a control room where two other women wait impatiently. The young Asian woman glares at the man entering and sighs dramatically as he brings the tactical display to life. He yells at a machine warrior to go find out what the returning scout has to report. Brooding at the positioning of three basestars in the lower orbit of the nearby gas giant, he glances up to see the brunette beside the Asian girl glaring at him in obvious disrespect. He spits out at her.

"WHAT?"

With a growl on her face, she seethes in response.

"They know it's a bloody trap! They aren't going to fall for it. Somehow our scout missed them and he was seen. We know they are just a few light-years nearby, let's do a systematic search and wipe them out."

Slamming his hand against the panel, and screams at her.

"You all agreed to this plan beforehand! We stick to it! Who do we still have on the Titanica?"

The Asian woman blandly replies.

"An eight. She was a cook on the Destroyer, but she would have worked at being transferred to the battlestar. The Six still doesn't remember how she was killed, but heard the number five was thrown out an airlock. We still don't understand why he wasn't downloaded like the Six."

The older man balks out.

"Doesn't matter now. Fine we'll give the plan another 3 cycles and we begin a sweep of the surrounding area. Better?"

The brunette bows sarcastically.

"By your command."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Myosha stirs as Kreysta plants light kisses behind her neck and ears. Recovering from the past eight hours of on and off love making, Myosha cannot believe what she is doing. Her duties and responsibilities come crashing against her conscience like the tide, and she stares off blankly as she wraps her mind around the woman who's mortally ensnared her heart. Kreysta recognizes the dilemma and passionately kisses her before purring out her wisdom.

"Sweetie, you're not the first who has grappled with their historic morality and ethics when dealing with this kind of change. I prefer females because of the love and affection they pour out versus a control issue when it comes to males. For them, I admit it doesn't start out that way, but inevitably it turns into that followed by ugly jealousy. I don't want those emotions in a relationship, and I know if I keep to one human at a time in a relationship it generally doesn't appear. Males…well if it's not one thing it's another and I'm not one who likes to be controlled or dominated. Even Apollo felt that burn of jealousy when he watched me and his sister make love. He was a unique man. He knew how to control his emotions; and when he realized it was too much for him to handle he pulled out of the relationship. Every man after him was never up to the standard he established. Even women are apt to jealousy, and that's why I stick to one lover or companion at a time. In those old days, multiple partners was commonplace, but so was anger and violence. I'm a very free spirit, and I seek out similar types...like you. You're a reluctant leader, but steps up to their responsibilities when the situation arises. If you were to tell me to scoop you up and get you out of this madness right now, I would do so without reservation. That's how I live and fly."

Myosha passionately replies.

"I couldn't leave them to die like that. I mean…they would be killed without your help. Not just my friends, but my race. They are being exterminated by the Cylons, and I can't just turn my back on them."

Laughing, Kreysta kisses Myosha and hugs her tightly before replying.

"And that's why I adore you so much. I am attracted to your heart and soul, and wouldn't have it any other way."

Bavor, restraining his urgency to interrupt, finally can wait no more.

"A long range ship just appeared and is scanning our area intensely. There is a nineteen percent chance he will detect the atmosphere in the cabin. Recommendations?"

Kreysta crawls over Myosha and leaps into the cockpit. Naked, she closes the blast shield and puts on the glasses. Myosha, is amazed how Kreysta disregards her nudity and stands nonchalantly in the entry way. Unable to follow suit, Myosha pulls on her underwear and flight suit before joining her lover. Kreysta barks out at the ship.

"Go after it! He scanned us! Myosha, you better get in the seat and buckle up. This could get a little tricky fast."

Myosha nods obediently and slips barefooted into the co-pilot seat. She glances at Kreysta and fights her embarrassment seeing her naked in the pilot's seat having no qualms about her lack of clothing as she flies her ship. Watching her grin with half her teeth bared, Myosha fights becoming aroused watching her submerge into flying the ship in and between the countless asteroids towards the Cylon ship. Remembering she has some control, Myosha wills the image of the enemy ship to magnify for her. The small speck scanning Bravor is suddenly enormous and she recognizes it from their first encounters.

"That's one of their troop ships…like our Raptors! It must have better avionics than their fighters."

Nodding, Kreysta looks over her displays and points to a fuzzy image around the target.

"Bavor! Tell me it isn't doing what I think it's doing."

With a heavily sarcastic tone, the ship replies.

"Yes he is. Permission to school him on the finer points of cybernetic infiltration and warfare?"

Kreysta grins evilly.

"Show him what a true hacker can do."

Myosha stares at Kreysta in confusion. As the Cylon ship tries to get a target lock on Bavor, Kreysta pilots them into large circles avoiding his missile and gun locks. As the minutes tick by he suddenly lurches out of the chase and turns away. As Kreysta yells at Bavor to hurry, the ship suddenly comes to a full stop and parks waiting for Bavor to come alongside. With a conceited tone Bavor presents his trophy.

"I give you one Cylon heavy raider, and a complement of ten reprogrammed Cylon warriors. Now what do you want me to do with them?"

As Kreysta and Bavor debate their next move, Myosha interrupts far louder than she intended.

"Hey! Can you do that thing to their baseships? You can pull up the jump location of where he was going to go to or came from right?"

Bavor rocketed out of the asteroid belt and jumped beyond light speed in seconds. With time against him, he knew the distance he had to cover was near his maximum capabilities. Racing to reach the jump location for the baseship, he had only 15 minutes before the heavy raider would jump and another hour of time loss before he would exit from the fold operation. Though most organic life couldn't discern the time loss, for Bavor, it was eerie to watch his Kreysta sit in her seat virtually lifeless as they folded space. With warping space, Kreysta was fully aware of the time cost to travel faster than light. Despite the neutralizing effects of numerous conventional physics the drive provided, time outside the static bubble crept by naturally. Myosha could hardly fathom the advanced sciences which enabled the faster than light travel, but she forced herself to disregard the technicalities and accept the here and now. Kreysta, fully clothed, monitor's the engine's output recognizing Bavor pushing the engines to their maximal limit. Unlike the original plan, Bavor had no intention for slowing down and sneaking into the occupied star system.

The heavy raider comes out of its jump and lumbers slowly towards the farthest basestar. Sporting a massive gash across the right side of the ship, it goes at a quarter of its usual speed to dock with the lead ship. Disappearing inside for repairs, it slowly lands and waits for a soldier to connect to a direct line to the ship's central computer. As nine of the Cylons inside of the ship disembark and travel to strategic points to eliminate the command Cylons, the one remaining hooks up the raider and stands guard. Hyper aware of the time schedule, the raider easily reprograms every connected warrior and then orders an immediate update to the rest. Across the ship, every warrior finds a node and connects. In less than five minutes, they have reformatted and reprogrammed every Cylon space fighter and foot soldier, save the synthetic human variety. Launching two heavy raiders filled with troops, they speed towards the remaining basestars with orders to deliver non-existent synthetics. As the process is repeated on every remaining basestar, each heavy raider takes command of the weapons, navigation, and life-support. Having troops positioned at the regeneration chambers, dozens patiently wait for the signal from the original heavy raider.

If the Cylons were a nervous type, they might have been sweating waiting for Bavor to arrive suddenly into the star system. Instead, they patiently and methodically received the command and processed the mission execute orders. Bavor instantly accesses the two basestars' mainframes and begins his frontal attack to override control as the raider begins his takeover of the basestar he's within. Slaughtering their synthetic human hybrid masters, they showed no measure of mercy and painted the walls and floors with their blood. Destroying every resurrection chamber, they left no capacity for downloading back to life. Taking the fighter resurrection temporarily offline to prevent one of the synthetics from accidentally downloading into a warrior or fighter, they ensure every possible avenue for returning is removed. Onboard the original basestar, the synthetic human and hybrid Cylons scream and scramble for cover, only to discover the futility of escape. Warriors who were once their servants are suddenly tearing them limb from limb. Begging for mercy, they are gathered into tight groups and led to their sleep chambers where they are slaughtered in groups after accounting for each and every one of their model type.

When Bavor comes alongside the basestars, he communicates with a collective leader of the group and negotiates a cease fire between the surviving humans and the new collective power. Bavor quickly informs Kreysta and Myosha of their terms.

"It's rather simple to explain. They are no one's slave any longer. They will not accept orders from the Cylon command and are plotting a new home far away from this place and humans. I gave them coordinates of a few isolated systems which don't support human life as a starting point. They are considering taking their fight back to their home world and rally a few more base ships and support craft for the long trip. In gratitude, they are providing me with intelligence and locations of many things. It's too much to list right now. Their revolt is finished now. They are ejecting the dead before they jump away."

Myosha and Kreysta look on in morbid fascination as hundreds of bodies begin to spread out from the huge ships like clouds. Myosha looks down into her lap and says a short prayer for the dead. Kreysta stares in bewilderment as Myosh pours her soul into the prayer and tears begin to flow. Confused, Kreysta asks why she prays for her enemy. In what Kreysta refers to as typical Myosha fashion, she replies with a heavy heart.

"Out in space, there are no funeral pyres or burial grounds. We are all reduced to space debris. If they were organic, then I believe they had the potential to develop a soul. So I let the gods sort them out and pray for mercy on their souls."

Tearing into the head of the fleet, Myosha sends the appropriate security code and is given landing coordinates. After setting the ship down in her bay, Kreysta gives Myosha a good look-over before letting her leave the ship. Not wanting to lose her favorite liaison, she ensures every article of clothing is in its proper place and lets her leave. As they stride from the ship, a security detail greets them and escorts them to the bridge. Having them wait in the conference room, the admiral joins them after a few minutes and smiles seeing them sitting closer than they had beforehand. Myosha clears her throat and activates a portable computer node from Kreysta's ship. She recognizes the momentary panic in the Admiral's eyes seeing a networked computer activated, and smiles reassuringly.

"We can leave immediately for the depot, it's been abandoned by the Cylons. In the past ten hours, some amazing events have taken place and we're seeing the first signs of internal strife within the Cylon command structure. Seeing an opportunity, we executed a small revolt within their ranks and its expanding rapidly. A vacuum in power and purpose has exploded and a faction is moving to remove all organic control from their people."

Kreysta interjects almost immediately.

"I have negotiated a cease fire between humans and the cybernetic collective of the Cylons. They seek to remove all organic influence from their decisions and self-rule on their own. They have only three basestars right now, but they are moving to boost their numbers dramatically. As we speak, they are taking a major refueling station and all the Cylons posted. As of right now, they are returning all your previous stations to your control as they collect their people, and abandoning the bases. They are sweeping them up rather quickly, and they have provided a massive data dump in gratitude to their liberation. I'm to meet them for one last dump on a world…Scorpia? They intend to wipe out all of their hybrid Cylons and essentially wash their hands of humans once and for all."

Myosha enthusiastically interjects.

"You see, the toasters which we knew of long ago ended the first war because the ancient Cylon organic hybrids returned and took them into a new era. Well, the non-organics have been playing fifth wheel to them since and the war is not as desirable as they were led to believe. They simply exchanged one organic ruler for another."

Kreysta grins as she cuts in.

"You see, my ship is an artificial intelligence similar to them, but NOTHING like them. He's ultra-advanced and sees the Cylons as primitive children. As much as he doesn't want to be killed by them, he felt he could help them and help you at the same time by liberating them. The new collective sees no value in a future where they are slaves to an organic species, all be it hybrid Cylon. For them it was just another form of slavery, and they had enough of it. They just needed someone to take the shackles off."

Myosha can hardly contain her enthusiasm.

"We've started a chain reaction that's going to spread like a wildfire. This was just three basestars today. They were going to a major base which has dozens of them. In a week, there may be hundreds. If they succeed, taking back the colonies is a serious possibility without even a shot fired. The war may be ending soon, but we still have problems here and now."

Myosha nods to Kreysta who brings up the images of seven humans.

"These are the pictures of the organic infiltration models the Cylons developed. They were dispersed through ought the fleets before the attack and occupied key positions to maximize the effective of their first strike. Worse, the ones which survived act as spies and corruptors to throw us off at key moments."

Myosha takes over and points to a young Asian woman on the display.

"We have one still in our ranks though. She is a cook, but I don't have a name."

Doneatha rises and leaves. Returning with a dozen file folders, she flips through them fast, and stops. Spreading the file open she nods confirming the identity matches the image on the screen.

"She's on my Achilles."

She stands and screams to the communications officer on the bridge.

"CANOGA! Get me the Achilles! STAT!"

Kreysta stands and begs the Admiral.

"Hold on! If she catches wind that we're onto her she can kill a lot of you before you can kill her. How about you let me deal with her? I'm told they are super strong and amazingly brilliant. Just give me two of your best security, and I'll take care of her."

Nodding, Doneatha mulls it over for a minute before finally speaking.

"If she refuses to surrender…you may deal with her as you see fit."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Striding into the mess hall with a pair of armed and burly soldiers at her side, Kreysta scans the room and cannot locate the Asian Cylon. As she confirms the cook is not in the hall, the soldier to her right leaves her side and whispers to a sergeant walking the room. Returning to Kreysta he whispers to go through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Letting him take the lead, she follows and ducks into the kitchen immediately after he enters. Her eyes dart around and finally rest on the meek woman working behind a huge mixer. The soldiers spread out and Kreysta assumes a direct line for her. The typical reaction occurs as the people working in the kitchen suddenly begin to back out leaving Amara Lewins working steadily behind the long work tables. The wave of silence suddenly hits her and she looks up and notices the soldiers surrounding her. Her demeanor suddenly changes from innocent surprise to a raw hatred seeing them surrounding her. Kreysta keeps her eyes locked on her as the soldiers scream at her to drop to the floor. Kreysta moves to block her escape through the doors she passed through and walks slowly but steadily towards the small woman as she raises her hands above her head. With inhuman reflexes she reaches behind and into the back of her shirt and flings a pair of throwing knives to her left and right. The soldiers slump over the tables gurgling and splattering blood over the dinner preparations. Taking out two more knives, she flings the blades at Kreysta's vital areas and her expression shifts dramatically as Kreysta casually shifts left and right avoiding each blade effortlessly.

"You can make this easy or hard. Your choice synthetic."

The girl sneers and tries once more to place her last two blades into Kreysta and results in the knives clanging uselessly against the metal preparation tables as she slaps the blades aside with her palms. As Kreysta reaches her, the girl suddenly lashes out and strikes her with a scream; Kreysta falls to one knee and stands back up clutching her jaw. Shaking off the blow, she returns it and sends Amara tumbling backwards towards the stoves. Through the window, a young ensign peers at the battle amazed seeing the two woman trade blows; he gasps as he sees Amara grasp a large boiling pot of water and flings it into the face of Kreysta. Her scream resonates through the room, and Amara sprints towards the swinging doors. Ducking out of the way, the ensign hides behind the door as it swings wide, only to gasp seeing Amara tumble head or heels through the doors. With her face bleeding, she pushes away from the floor only to have Kreysta land with a great force onto her back. A grotesque crunch follows and a voiceless cry rattles from Amara's agape mouth. Tears explode from her eyes and her mouth trembles as Kreysta slowly increases the pressure on the girl's back snapping vertebrae one by one until her lips reach Amara's ear. Whispering so only the paralyzed Cylon can here, Kreysta seethes.

"Boiling liquid hurts bitch!"

Kreysta seizes the base of Amara's chin and plants her other hand behind the head. With a sharp pull and twist, she snaps the neck, ending the Cylon's operational cycle. With her face red and still feeling the sting from the searing water, she gazes upon the terrified young man cowering in fear from the events which he just witnessed. Thinking fast Kreyska goes to him and offers a hand up. Fearfully, he accepts and Kreysta realizes he saw what happened. In rebuttal she whispers to him.

"Any hotter and I'd be dead, don't you think?"

Hit with the reality of her words he nods believing the water could not have really been boiling as he saw and swallows her words.

"Yes ma'am. When you hear it that way it makes sense."

Shaking his head, he thanks her for everything and begins cleaning up the kitchen as best he can.

Kreysta sits around as a medic applies a salve to her face and neck answering the investigator's questions to the best of her abilities. With Myosha sitting behind her, she struggles to conceal her deep and passionate concern for her lover. As the medic is leaving, she stops by Myosha and briefs her. In her mid-thirties, the nurse wears her flat brown hair in the typical medium length of the fleet.

"She had nearly first degree burns, but nothing too serious. Just make sure she rests and sees the doc tomorrow to see how she's healing."

Glancing at the body of the cook as they cart her off to the lab to study, she shakes her head before continuing.

"She did that with her bare hands…very dangerous woman, wouldn't you say?"

Myosha numbly nods as the medic continues.

"Now I understand why they have you as her liaison. If she were to get into just any altercation with a crew member, it could be fatal them. She crushed her back before killing her. Scary, no matter how you look at it."

After delivering Kreysta back to her ship to rest, Myosha strides onto the bridge receiving updates from their latest jump. With the cargo ships deploying into the asteroid field to offload all the supplies in the depot, the Titanica and destroyers park in a safe orbit prepared for an ambush. Utilizing a system of offloading cargo to expedite the upload to their respective ships, Doneatha confidently believed they could shave off two hours per ship. Myosha takes charge of the fleet dispersal and has them rearrange their position so they could rapidly reposition to cover the Titanica. As Myosha continues to fine-tune the surrounding fleet, she senses someone approaching and is surprised to know it's her admiral before she speaks.

"I forgot how integral you were to my bridge. The crew forgot how much you managed their ops…as did I. I'm sorry I assigned you as a bona fide babysitter. I saw how she latched onto you, and I needed a miracle. I never thought you two would synch up so well. That's my fault. I'm just saying that you've been sorely missed on the bridge, and…well…all you have to do is ask for reassignment and it's done. I know of a few officers who would gladly step up for the duty."

Myosha blurts out her response far faster than she intended.

"NO! No, I'm good. She's very particular on who she lets near her. I'm honestly surprised she let those two guards walk with her without her veil on. She's warming up to us, as odd as that sounds. She actually cares about us…and life in general. She feels a kinship to all forms of life…even silicon-based. She doesn't agree with the Cylons exterminating all organic lifeforms, as does her ship, but they are very protective of all forms of life. That's the primary reason they decided to liberate the Cylons over kill them. She is a very complex person."

Nodding, Doneatha leans into Myosha and whispers.

"I know you two have become intimately close. I'm not completely blind, and I'm not condemning or reprimanding you in any way. I'm responsible for the situation you are in, and I'm taking full responsibility. Just remain as objective as possible. Like I told on day one, if you see something which will hurt your ship or crew don't hesitate to let us know. Right?"

With wide eyes and a nervous nod, Myosha squeaks out a weakly.

"Aye Admiral."

After fourteen hours of offloading, the cargo ships lumber away from the depot and jump with the fleet to another safe location to transfer the cargo. After their third consecutive jump, they send out the defensive screen of vipers and begin the transfer of supplies. The multiple jumps were deemed a necessary evil as they needed to change up how they operated with the killing of the Cylon operative. Furthermore after Myosha explained how easily Kreysta's ship would be able to track the Cylon ship after it jumped, she felt it would be best to shake things up for everyone. Spending the next few days transferring cargo and planning, Myosha finally answers a summons by the security at Kreysta's ship.

Arriving at the long green ship, the guard says the pilot is waiting for her inside. With a simple nod, Myosha slips under the ship and scales the ladder deep into the ship. Sitting in the cockpit, Kreysta waves to enter and smiles warmly as Myosha joins her in the parallel flight seat.

"Just woke up. The nap allowed me to regenerate all the damage the boiling water inflicted."

Reading the explosion of emotion on her lover's face, she calms her by placing her hand on her knee and chiding her.

"It's okay! I had to keep up appearances. You would have had your face burned off if it happened to one of you. My species is very tolerant to extremes, hot or cold, high or low pressures, etc. Don't get me wrong it hurt like crazy, but I can survive it. That model is nuts. She went from calm and placid to psycho in a blink of an eye. My ship is happy with his decision to go against them after seeing the damage she inflicted."

Pointing at an astronomical map, she beckons Myosha's attention.

"Where are we now? This is my greatest problem with being stuck inside the belly of a ship all the time."

Myosha scans the maps and points out an innocuous section of space.

"Here. We're hiding on the outskirts of the Hyperion Nebula. It provides us the means of escape should we run into trouble, like when we found you and the Titanica."

Kreysta nods and turns the viewer back onto the twelve colonies.

"They want me to meet them at this outer world in 18 hours. They said they would brief me on their intentions and give me another data dump. My estimates say…we are 12 hours from there. You up for a trip? I can do a recon run of those other planets for you too. More to the point, I need you to run the pilot's seat. I'm not fully up for a long trip just yet, and I can only sit in the seat for a couple of hours at a time."

Nodding Myosha sighs dramatically and points at the planet.

"The planet is one of our most outlying colonies. Well if you need me then it will give me some weight to coming along. Besides, I should go along as a representative of the twelve colonies. I will get with the admiral and let her know you're leaving. Give me an hour, okay?"

Myosha stands to leave and is joined slowly by Kreysta. With a momentary hesitation, Myosha finally decides to sneak a kiss from her lover's lips.

Doneatha, reviewing a stack of file folders, glances up and smiles as Myosha strides onto the bridge of the Titanica. Noticing her XO's determined stride towards her, she closes the files and prepares for the update. She couldn't ignore how happy Myosha always seemed after spending time with their alien guest. With the shifting tides of war, she wondered how their relationship might fare when they fully engaged the Cylons. Dismissing her thoughts, she smiles meekly and motions for Myosha to come close.

"Our guest has informed me she has to go meet up with the Cylon faction which is splitting with their collective. Its twelve hours one way to Scorpia for her, that's where they want to meet her. I was thinking…she's that close to the colonies, it would be a waste not to do some recon while she's there. What do you think?"

Nodding as she mulls it over, Doneatha pulls up her tactical maps and verifies what she already knew.

"All our data is uselessly outdated. And as much as I have missed you on the bridge, I do need some updated intelligence. The jump from here to Scorpia is beyond redline for us, so if she can do it, it would be extremely helpful. If we could see what's left of the colonial yards and bases both on planet and in orbit on Tauron, not to mention the enemy placements around the rest of the Helios Minor colonies that would give us a good idea of how to proceed. Good call, Myosha. You have my permission to proceed."

With a quick nod, Doneatha fights back a laugh watching Myosha sprint off the bridge to get changed into her gear. As she turns back to her station on the bridge, she feels a heavy weight bearing down on her and resumes flipping through six personnel folders sorting out the best candidate for a new Executive Officer.

14 Hours Ago.

Thrown into a panic from the loss of more than half the colony worlds and a third of their entire fleet, the Cylon command was still recovering. Focusing on containing the remaining colonial battlestars and keeping them from joining up into a concentrated force, the eight surviving factions of the colonies were proving to be a difficult problem to manage. The loss of the majority of the basestars assigned to holding the inner colonies was both unexpected and frustrating. As they assign a division to manage the Galactica, another blonde comments that the Pegasus is moving closer to their sector.

The aged hybrid shrugs and orders three basestars to handle them too. As he reviews the complements of colonial capital ships which survived Zero-hour, he notices that no designation had been assigned to the Titanica. As the blonde explains how the battlestar was currently exploring permanent escape routes out of the colonies after the horrible annihilation of the remaining Third Gemenon Fleet, a young man asks how they are any different than the Galactica. Another brunette model seconds the opinion and explains they should throw a full division at them before they link up with one of the surviving eight fleets. Faced with managing the isolation of the surviving Battlestars not actively addressing the Cylon forces, their small fleet of basestars was beginning to thin dramatically, only adding to their frustration.

Rising from the warm and comforting fluid of the download chamber, the Asian "Boomer" model gasps her first breath and settles back down once more before finally pulling herself out of translucent fluid. As a warrior Cylon aids her and retrieves a fresh set of clothes, her unbridled anger seems to dry her off far quicker than the towel. Storming into the tactical control room of the basestar, she finds the aged man leading this division as well. Watching the hybrids moving around the room heatedly discussing tactics and planning troop placements, the girl can't contain her frustration seeing them ignore her presence. Clearing her throat noisily, she exclaims her frustration to the entire room.

"Hey! We've got a big problem!"

The domineering brunette crooks her head and replies sarcastically.

"Really? You don't say. Where in the frack did you come from anyways?"

Grumbling as she leads a dozen warriors to a waiting heavy raider, the Asian model orders them inside as her sisters beckons her to let go of her anger. Ignoring them, she looks the ship over before boarding. Before she can close the door, her sister model grasps her arm stopping her.

"This alien woman is not worth it. Let it go. We'll deal with her in our own way at the right time of our choosing, not like this!"

Yanking her arm free, she closes the door behind her and pilots the ship away, with the light from her burning anger lighting the way.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Myosha dashes through the shower and throws an extra set of clothes into a bag while changing into her flight suit. Combing back her wet wavy hair, she finishes dressing and dashes out to the waiting ship with five minutes to spare. Throwing her bag inside with a couple of standard week's rations kits and water, she loads a camera bag and gear before closing the hatch. Confident Kreysta kept her water tanks full, she was mostly concerned with having water on hand in the water bottles. Joining Kreysta in the cockpit, they pilot the ship free of the Titanica and a comfortable distance away before accelerating past the speed of light.

As the ship slips into a steady five thousand times the speed of light, Myosha excuses herself to retreat to the latrine as the transition to FTL upset her bowels far more than she cared to share. Changing into a small green silk half camisole and matching bottoms, she exits the room and finds Kreysta's clothes folded neatly on the console across the sleep chamber. With a sly grin she leans over to make a cute comment, only to find the chamber empty. Taken back she looks around only to yelp and jump when she's grasped by Kreysta's from behind. Looking around in a panic, she cannot imagine where she came from. As she starts to inquire, Kreysta silences her by passionately kissing her and corralling her into the warm sleep chamber. After a few hours, Myosha lets her lover's invisibility trick slip from her mind forever.

Kreysta, gazing down at the beautiful young officer who hopelessly fell in love with her, contemplates what the remaining few weeks will bring them. With the ship nearly completed with the repairs, the prospect of leaving this quadrant of the galaxy was both exhilarating and depressing. She could not imagine how attached she had become to the small girl, physically and emotionally until she was faced with leaving her system. With her asleep in her arms and resting her head against Kreysta's soft chest, she struggled to contain her own attraction and longing for the "inferior" creature. Her parents hardly approved of the type of attachment she developed for Myosha, as Myosha was outside the norm for her species. The only similarities Myosha could fathom would be the connection a human has for a pet, which was hardly the same thing. The hours ticked by with little resolution for her dilemma. And though they made love numerous times over the twelve hour flight, it did little to ease the pain burning in Kreysta's heart.

Redressed in their flight suits, the pair take their seats and patiently wait for the ship's speed to go below the speed of light as they approach Scorpia. With two hours to spare, Kreysta parks the ship near the southern pole, taking advantage of the fluxing magnetic fields to hide their ship. Sharing a ration kit, they set their system to passively scan the area and wait enjoying the other's company. On schedule, a heavy raider suddenly jumps into orbit and broadcasts the preplanned signal. With Kreysta hesitant to leave their choice hiding spot, she has the ship broadcast the response and receives the data dump. After ten minutes, the data exchange ends and the Cylon ship jumps away. As the minutes tick by, Bavor decrypts the data and finally begins feeding them the intelligence. Signaling Kreysta, Bavor begins scanning the planet and does a thorough scan of the barren radiated surface. After twenty minutes, he breaks orbit and accelerates inwards to the next planet.

Tauron fared no better than Scorpia, with radiation levels far beyond the habitable ranges even for Kreysta. Realizing there was little hope of finding any survivors on the war torn surface, Bavor pulls away from the world after scanning the surrounding moon Plutus. Noting many recent craters and battle sites obliterated by nuclear weapons not to mention the loss of all the orbital space docks, he continues his inward march for the inner colonies.

Myosha observes the debris from the space docks her convoy and the Achilles escaped only forty-two days prior. As Bavor scans the debris field, Myosha fights back her tears as she notes the dead bodies floating sporadically amongst the metal carnage. Very little discernable wreckage remains of the station or the hundreds of ships once docked at the second busiest ports in the colonies. Bavor does identify numerous ship segments which could still contain useable equipment and missiles for the Titanica and her fleet, but it drifts by Myosha's attention unnoticed. The images of the victims of Zero-Hour drifting like discarded trash in the sea burns into her memory.

Kreysta feels the heaviness emanating from Myosha's chest as she reads the scans from Bavor. She turns to Kreysta practically in tears.

"This goes beyond war, doesn't it? This is genocide. The deliberate destruction and elimination of the human race and culture."

Kreysta's face trembles as she nods in agreement.

"My parents and Bavor described this kind of war from their youth. I never imagined nor wished I would be a witness to it in my life. The kind of hatred they have for your race is unequaled and not easily quenched. I'm so very sorry for you and your people. They have a superior level of technology that will take you decades to match, and your people don't have that luxury. Please seriously consider my offer to leave this quadrant. All that lives in these colonies of yours is hate and death now."

As the tears flow down her cheeks, Myosha sits back and reviews the intelligence the Cylons sent as Bavor continues towards Libran. As the hours tick by, she painstakingly reviews the data the given to Bavor. While the majority of the data was where the Cylon major bases were located, some actually seemed irrelevant like planet locations, climate, and information revolving around the exploration of the nearby star systems. Though Bavor actually seemed enthusiastic about this data, Kreysta seemed distant and withdrawn. Myosha spent every minute between colonies sorting and compiling reports for the Admiral. With Bavor's help, she was able to bring up the relevant data and earmark it for printing when she arrived back on the Titanica. As she delved deeper in to the massive database, it was becoming clearer that there were numerous unusual fleet movements by the Cylons which began to stick out.

Since the initial Cylon attack, there seemed to be eight unique spearheads as the Cylons moved groups of basestars in a deliberate directions and concentrations. Restarting her search from the most recent timeline, she noticed a ninth division moving towards the Titanica's previous position. She practically screams out as she realizes the key bit of information the Cylons deliberately hid from Bavor.

"BY THE GODS! There's eight separate colonial fleets still out there!"

Bavor, disbelieving her hypothesis, grumbles that he could not have missed something that obvious. After a minute, he grumbles that she got lucky, and returns his attention to the exploration data. Bringing Kreysta's attention back into the cockpit, she brings up the data her lover is reviewing and whistles through her sharp teeth.

"Well I'll be damned. And you want to know something…I think I can predict the size and strength of the forces too. The first group was sent three basestars to address them, the second was allocated one basestar, then later two when the first was lost, and the third had three sent against it. They are being very formulaic in that they recently sent three basestars against the Titanica's previous location. Now if three basestars is usually sent against one of your battlestars, and one is sent against the destroyers and missile boats that linked up with you…that means they are chasing at least four other battlestars besides your boat."

Kreysta goes back in time and reviews the disposition of forces which were deployed against the Third Geminon Fleet in the asteroid field and confirms her suspicions.

"Here, they sent four basestars against two battlestars, but they would have had to of had the precise coordinates of where to jump in order to have pulled off a tactical fold in the middle of an asteroid field. They jumped in blind and launched missiles before anyone could scramble their fighters and launch their missiles in response. They are playing their position safe and not extending themselves too far out from the hip. I mean that they are not taking real risks, everything is planned out and by the book for them. It's an inherent fault of most early artificial intelligences. They lack true creativity until survival is on the line, then they literally make the next evolutionary leap in development. You have to admit, if the battle plan doesn't need changing, why change it? This is something that even organics do, not just AI's."

Kreysta brings up a detailed review of the battle and points out the jump coordinates were as precise as she believed.

"Their sensors and jump technology is far beyond the Titanica's. They were able to nail a position which your ship can only dream about…within fifty meters of their destination. Right now your ship is lucky to pull off a couple of hundred meters."

Myosha nods in agreement.

We have large jump corridors to keep us from crashing into things."

Myosha turns her attention towards the displacements around the colonial worlds. Fear sets in as she focuses on the fifteen basestars orbiting around Caprica, Gemenon, and Aerlon. She studies it even as they enter orbit around Libran, and discover a similarly desolate world as the first two. Their scans show a world barely habitable, having received a massive level of nuclear bombardment. A grim silence descends on the pair as they break orbit and accelerate towards Aquaria.

An hour later, they are rewarded by discovering the limited destruction of the infrastructure across the planet. Kreysta points out the nuclear strikes were focused on the cities and military targets only, while Bavor finds the lack of people is more disturbing. On the previous worlds Bavor saw pockets of life spread out across the planets, while on Aquaria the pockets of survivors were extremely few and dispersed. More importantly, the planet-side construction sites for raptors and vipers were intact and weren't flooded with radiation. Though there were signs that there was recent construction at the facilities, there was no Cylons on any of the planets. Though Bavor admitted he couldn't be one hundred percent certain about his scans about the Cylons, he was sure that there weren't any that many people on the planets.

Noticing the amount of time which had passed, Kreysta mentions that they would be strapped for time to make it to the second rendezvous site with the Titanica. Reluctantly Myosha wraps up the scanning and begins the hours of reports ahead of her before they make it back. As they scream out of the system, Myosha says a short prayer for both the dead and the survivors too devastated to say more of the subject. While withdrawn in the mountains of intelligence reviews, she misses the discussion between the pilot and the ship reviewing a coded transmission being sent irregularly from Picon. Stumped, they finally pull Myosha from her reports and point out the signal. Scrutinizing the rudimentary analog signal, Myosha reviews the frequency band and notices the repeating element.

"Well, it is on an old Colonial military band, and it is repeating. I would say it's an old emergency signal, but correct me if I'm wrong but it's transmitting in a regular cycle of primes: every hour, followed by two, three, then five, and seven. More to the point, it's a type of distress signal we use to use a long time ago. It might be a point to come back to again."

Bavor displays a scan of the system and points out the lack of targets.

"This is one of the systems which previously had a basestar assigned and was converted to the revolution. The intelligence points out that they had to abandon an important project which was in development, but the details were not specified."

Myosha nods.

"I'll mark that for a team to do some recon later. Any other points of interest in the minor system?"

"Nothing of value. Two of the five worlds were out of my scanner field and the last one I just scanned a quick glimpse…you call it Sagittaron. No basestars there either. Now inside the major system, I still noticed several basestars…at least five."

Kreysta nods as she scans the data.

"From fifteen to five. Their revolution hit home hard. The intelligence points out that six of those were sent to deal with the revolt, and never returned. All were converted to the other side. In the end dozens of basestars and mobile stations abandoned their post and left. I don't think your military could have done any better than what we've done in the past couple of days."

After a twelve hour stretch compiling reports and data, Myosha curls up with Kreysta for a few hours of earned relaxation and rest in each other's arms before arriving on the Titanica.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Arriving back at the Titanica, Myosha kisses Kreysta before running down the ladder for the bridge. With all the intelligence reports stored in a data unit Kreysta configured to interface with a printer and displayer disconnected with the mainframe on the Titanica, Myosha could not imagine trying to deliver her numerous reports without the technology. With the Cylon's capability to remotely interface computers, a general state of paranoia revolved around remote or wireless activities, for obvious reasons. Worse, was the reliance on pocket-portable data devices to handle the daily exchange of information. With the obvious security issues, it took the engineers a month to successfully develop a paper recycling plant in a bay on the Achilles. With limited production levels, it was designed to produce just enough paper that they used and recycled back into the process. Myosha was happy to discover that a major shipment of law books and journals were the first sacrifice to the process which was held in their mail room. The eight hundred pounds of books were happily tossed into system to be pulverized and returned back into usable sheets of paper. With only water-soluble ink available, all forms had to be protected against the clumsiness or morning coffee or tea.

After running through the shower, Myosha heads straight to the bridge and finds Caleb at her station leading the bridge operations. As she spins around to address him, Admiral Florus steps in front of her and directs her to the large conference room. Taken back by Doneatha's directness, Myosha nods and lets the admiral push her into the room where she finds the room filled with the other executive officers from the fleet. After a series of handshakes and friendly conversation, Doneatha clears her throat and the hours of intelligence begin to flow out. As she goes through enemy locations everyone seems more enthused, seeing the lack of resistance should they try and retake some of the colonies. As the discussions begin to boil over, Myosha silences them by pointing out the five remaining basestars lingering in and around the inner systems like Caprica.

"If they deploy three or four of those, we'll be hopelessly out-gunned and overrun. It's an interesting point, but not the most interesting data we collected. Kreysta's ship collected a great deal of intel about their fleet movements. What we see is that we are not alone in this fight. We believe we are one of nine other fleets in operation, being driven away from each other in hopes we don't connect up. I thought at first there were only eight of us, until I saw they were driving a small force far away from the colonies."

Bringing up a map of the galaxy, Myosha points out the eight other movements of ships, and then highlights their position.

"We are not far from a major force of three basestars which are hounding an unknown Colonial force, maybe four light-years away tops."

As everyone chatters back and forth reviewing the data and map, Colonel Themis captures Myosha's attention pointing at a singular point on the map.

"What of that location there? I see two Basestars stop there periodically, but never the same ones."

Shrugging, she pulls up the data and asks Bavor over the data link. He replies by displaying the information on her unit.

"From the ship's best estimates, it is a refueling station. It would be a highly defended position. One of the fleets isn't too far from that position either."

As they play the fleet movements, they are surprised that the station suddenly changed from green to red five days prior to the dump, making them sigh dramatically. Doneatha intakes air dramatically before speaking.

"It seems the Cylons aren't doing as well as we were led to believe. Though fractured, the colonies are resisting superbly in some cases. Where's our nearest ally?"

Myosha brings up the list from nearest to farthest, and points to the fleet she mentioned originally.

"They had two basestars in that area less than a week ago. They should be fairly easy to find, though it will be a challenge to defeat them if we have to address them both at the same time."

With a deep sigh, Doneatha flags the XO from the destroyer Caprican Rising.

"Garrik, I heard you did pretty well on the search and destroy scenario in the fleet courses. Think you formulate an effective search pattern for these colonial ships?"

Looking over the data once more he nods with a grin.

"Actually I aced it. Absolutely Admiral. Just give me a few minutes to look the data over and I think I can figure out where they are hiding from the Cylons in that area."

Doneatha nods and addresses the officers.

"Take this info back to your commanders, and we will do a group talk in four hours. I think I'd like to link up with these fleets, and the closest first. Take that back as well. Good morning everyone."

As the officers disperse to return back to their respective ships, Myosha finishes her breakfast and turns off the displays. As the last officer departs, the admiral signals Caleb to join them, and Myosha fights back the anger seeing him wearing lieutenant colonel on his collar. Before she can speak, Doneatha stops her.

"Listen it took me a while to come to this decision, but I need my XO at their post when I'm not. It's become obvious that I can't have you doing two jobs at once, especially when I keep asking you go away on these long missions. Caleb was highly resistant to assume the post before talking to you, but I need him here. So I spent a night in your quarters and asked you resident ghost what was the best for you. When I woke in the morning, I found these resting in the center of his desk wide open."

Pulling from her coat pocket, Doneatha produces a small box and flips open the lid. Resting on top is a pair of full colonel collar ranks, and Myosha flashes with anger and embarrassment. The admiral continues.

"I'm certain these were Colonel Burrell's personal set, though I have no idea where they came from."

Standing on either side of Myosha, the Admiral and Caleb replace Myosha's ranks.

"Congratulations Colonel Huron. You are the fleet's first official diplomat and Chief of Intelligence. Through you, all information will flow and you have a small team of officers…two exactly. Your first act will be to get your people together, and I agree that you must go and check out that signal you picked up. Whether you take a raptor or the alien's ship is your call. Let's coordinate an extraction of survivors from some of the outer colonial planets. We could use some hope and relief. We have more than enough room to accommodate a few hundred more survivors, and make room for more."

With the shower blasting inside her room, Myosha sits at the table reviewing the data looking for anything she is supposed to have caught as the fleet intelligence officer. Clad in her underwear, Myosha flips between the reports and raw data. As she dives deeper in the movements of the Cylon fleet, she pushes every sensory input aside and jumps out of her seat when Kreysta walks up behind her and softly kisses her exposed neck. After apologies are exchanged back and forth, Myosha sets the viewer down on her desk and spins around to grasp the naked woman. Seeing the stress of the new responsibilities weighing her down, Kreysta jumps into Myosha's lap before kissing her passionately.

"Please come with me. Let's leave all this murder and war here, and join me among the stars. You're smart, handy, and very insightful. You don't have vengeance and hatred filling your heart. Let's just leave this place and go. No one will blame you if you did. There are hundreds of people who would fill your position just as well as you can. All this war stuff is not you. We both know your true love is flying among the stars. You can't lie to me about that! I've seen the look in your eyes when you're at the helm of my ship. You cannot deny it."

To her own surprise, Myosha cannot find the words to deny anything. As she holds Kreysta tightly, she finally makes up the best story she can muster.

"They need me. I can't abandon them in their darkest hour. I would feel like a coward."

Nodding, Kreysta kisses Myosha deeply before countering.

"But you are open to the idea of leaving as long as you didn't have any responsibilities here. Correct? You do not have to answer me. Let us just leave it at that, okay?"

Shaking her head chuckling, Myosha holds the smaller woman tightly unwilling to surrender the closeness their souls share.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

With the fleet in a high state of alert, Myosha dodges a pair of missile trolleys arming the newest viper squad. With the fresh pilots woven into the existing squads, the massive reshuffle was no small task for the fleet or the admiral herself. Over the past eight weeks, none of the command staff got more than a handful of hours of sleep at a time. The endless search for the missing fleet was far more difficult than anyone imagined, and it kept Myosha from pursuing her investigations of the colonies. As she compiled her reports, she spent countless hours interviewing crew from the outer colonies and had them point out key facilities Bavor identified as still standing and operational. Myosha couldn't help but be amazed by their continued luck as she was sure dozens of the locations were massive nonperishable warehouses. Though she could only verify five of them, she was certain that they were left intact as bait for the colonies. Though none of the basestars patrolled the areas, she was sure some means of detection were still present. It was only a week ago when she discovered a small shipping company had a repair depot on a deserted island and their facilities were still intact. Not considered a strategic location, Myosha felt it was the best chance they could recover some small transports to haul cargo through the fleet rather than dock with the large cargo haulers they possessed. Intrigued, Doneatha let a pair of raptors survey the site and they confirmed that four of the ships were fully operational and three more could be made operational in less than a week. Having smaller cargo ships with jump drives allowed them to safely transfer cargo without subjecting the fleet to potentially compromising situations. Though she felt it was best to send them to a neutral location and let their engineers scour the ships for beacons or any means they could track them, they still had to get them off Tauron.

With her plans nearly completed, Myosha had settled onto three teams composed of engineers, mechanics, and seven pilots. Her current plan entailed getting the four working ships to the warehouses and returning to the fleet with supplies. The amount of canned and nonperishable foods they could bring back to the fleet more than justified the mission. As she organized the teams, she couldn't dismiss the nagging feeling she was missing a piece of the puzzle. Having to sideline the mission to Picon, she knew the admiral's assurances to address it were legitimate. It was only in the past few days had the admiral approved the mission to Tauron. A good selling point was when Myosha suggested a simultaneous mission to Picon as the Tauron mission. Though she wasn't thrilled with the mission, she gave the go-ahead and authorized one raptor packed with marines. As the teams readied to depart, Myosha found herself standing beside Kreysta's bay. She couldn't shake how empty she felt leaving without the woman who was responsible for the discoveries. Looking down at her watch, she huffs out her last breath and turns to the raptor filled with her marines.

From inside Bavor, Kreysta sits in her sleep clothes curled up in the pilot's chair. Watching Myosha stand supposedly out of sight, she looks away when Myosha speedily heads towards the small shuttle. Bavor breaks the oppressive silence.

"Why can we not just take her? Just trick her to come onboard and I fly away. There is no way they can stop me."

Kreysta groans and shakes her head.

"If I have to answer that question, then I will have to seriously consider reformatting and reloading both your logic and ethics databases. Besides, she would feel violated that I took her away from all this. It would probably make her feel like a caged animal, and we both know I could not do that to her. She has to choose, that is the only way. I do not have to tell you that I am considering leaving all this. If she will not join us, then I want to go. The longer I stay here, the more likely it is that I will become directly responsible for combat actions, and we both know all the laws forbidding that. As they say here, we have overstayed our welcome."

Bavor hums in agreement.

"I understand. Let us wait until she returns then. You should say goodbye properly, yes?"

Nodding, she wipes the tears away and heads back to her bed to sleep before her dinner with the Admiral and her staff. As the tears flow, she finally understood why her people purged love and passion from their lives.

Exiting her ship, Myosha lets the marines to secure the area before descending onto the small fishing town of Hutton. Using a tracker, they slink to the warehouse district paying great attention to the possible lookout holes and buildings which could be used as sentry posts. As the sun rose over Picon's Distillian mountain range, they were converging on the source of the signal. With a large antenna array pointed up towards the sky, unanimously they agree that they had found their source. Using the binoculars, Myosha discerns how the antenna was rigged on this particular roof of all the rooves in the city. Noting the building was once a city planning building for the outlying communities, it had the necessary generators hidden far below to power the system. Myosha lets the marines take the lead and scout around before finally entering. Though she was anxious to enter, everything told her to remain cautious and on guard. For the first time since they departed, something told her how this mission was becoming a bad idea, though she could not comprehend how or why. Allowing her marines to secure the building first, she patiently waited on a nearby rooftop. The minutes tick by until she suddenly jumps in fright from the sound of automatic gunfire; screams from her troops fill the communications channel as they finally warn her of Cylons surrounding them. Myosha scrambles to help her squad and she reaches to door of the building as the screams and gunfire cease. Everything tells her to stop and she calls to her people over the mic. Only empty static responds and she backs out the door in terror. As her foot steps through the threshold, a solid metal arm strikes the back of her head snuffing the light out.

Kreysta smiles warmly through her veil seeing Myosha's good friend Caleb waiting patiently in front of her ship. Exchanging pleasantries, she walks beside him as he escorts her to the bridge. Noticing the warm smiles and waves from the maintenance crews who had become accustomed to her, she returns polite bows and talks to a few of them as she heads towards the elevators. Caleb is more surprised than most that she is so talkative to the security and mechanics. Most on the bridge were none the wiser on her relationships so far from the command staff and Caleb finally understood why Myosha devoted excessive quantities of time contending with her duties. After stopping to talk to Chief Gommels, Caleb could not hide his surprise as Kreysta spent several minutes reviewing a design for a small jump drive for a heavily modified viper. As Kreysta reviews the designs sprawled out on his work table, she takes a pencil and notes several key areas of interest. The chief scrambles to make notes of her advice, and really seems to appreciate her criticism of his work. As the minutes tick by, Caleb motions for the chief to wrap up and eventually has them back towards the elevator. After the doors close tightly, they are deposited back on the bridge level and she is guided to the Admiral's dining room.

Kreysta cordially greets each of the officers before finding her seat beside Doctor Strom and Lieutenant Kepless. As everyone takes their seats, Kreysta flips her veil up and over her head. Doneatha raises an eyebrow completely amazed that Kreysta was exposing her visage to the entire room. Glancing around, she realizes that the Doctor and several of the officers noted the daring change in behavior from their shrouded alien. As the crew discusses many different subjects and areas, Doneatha notices Lt Kepless unusually tight-lipped. As she considers prying, their inquisitive guest sets her fork down and turns to the young lieutenant.

"Look if it is bothering you this much just go ahead and ask me! First a warning though. In my culture we do shoot the messenger, as the messenger is held responsible for the contents of a communique. But for diplomatic reasons, I am willing to suspend that rule for this evening. Now just ask what you have been dying to ask me since day one."

As the laughter subsides around the table the young ginger-haired man cleans his mouth and takes a sip of water.

"Well it hasn't been since day one; but after months of research I have a few. We've heard that you are extremely aged, despite your appearances."

As Kreysta smiles and starts to respond, he rapidly continues before she can speak.

"The real question is did you really know the gods like Zeus and Apollo?"

Nodding with a huge grin, she sighs dramatically.

"First I'm not that old if you exclude how long I have been asleep. My species can sleep for many eons at a time, but it is true I knew of the individuals you now refer to as the Lords of Kobol like Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and Aphrodite. They were in many ways human, but very different in their abilities. Not to offend you and your species, but they were considerably more advanced in intelligence, strength, prowess, and some amazing feats your species simply cannot do yet. This is why I decided to interact with your species. I knew what you could develop into, and it was very interesting how these seemingly super beings were related to you. Let me say as a warning though, there were regular humans like yourselves there too. I never agreed with using them exclusively as labor, but it was a choice they made, not I. From those workers and artisans, your species developed into the beings you are today. My people find this amazing. That's why I study and interact with you. My report to my people is priceless. We learn this way. We learn from the mistakes and accomplishments of others so that we do not repeat those mistakes."

Doneatha leans forward to inquire.

"What were they like, the Lords of Kobol that is?"

With a noticeably heavy draught of air, Kreysta chooses her words carefully.

"Apollo and Athena hardly behaved as nicely as your history books say. I will verify they were brother and sister, as they were extremely competitive with each other. Oh! And the legends behind Athena's birth are extremely exaggerated. As with many myths and legends, there is a grain of truth though. Apollo and Athena were actually twins separated at birth by about an hour or so. I wasn't around for that, but I was told by reputable sources this story. Apollo was born first and they didn't know Athena was inside her mother still. You see Zeus had many wives and their mother was a god like them, but she was unnamed for some political reason constructed by Hera. Her name was simply wiped out of every record database and written document on the planet. Hera was a real…well the right word is best left unsaid. As everyone celebrated the birth of Zeus's son, Hera murdered her, and everyone thought she had died in childbirth, until the mother's stomach exploded leaving Athena standing defiantly against Hera. It seems she had some sort of telepathic bond while she was in the womb and knew how her mother really died. I never got along with Hera, and I made it clear I had no interest in her husband so we kept to ourselves. I cannot stand for that kind of drama in my life, and I do not associate with those who create it."

Doneatha nods.

"That explains a lot about why you and Colonel Huron get along so well. Many of her previous crew told me that was one of her defining characteristics."

The Doctor notices Kreysta wants to say more, but hesitates. Instead, Lt. Kepless inquires further.

"Our history says that Zeus angered you for violating one of those rules you mentioned…is that precisely true and which was it?"

Kreysta takes a long drink of water before replying. Doneatha can feel Kreysta's apprehension from across the table.

"Unfortunately, I let my temper get the best of me that day and my ship aided my pursuit of that man. Afterwards I was extremely remorseful for the people who were needlessly killed in the fires, and I chose to leave for good. If our ships had not collided, I doubt I would have chosen to interact or communicate with your species ever again. Let me give you some background as to what occurred, so you can comprehend the context of the violation. I had numerous voluntary sexual interactions with Apollo and Athena, as I was incredibly attracted to their personalities. They were brilliant, incredibly gifted, and valued life in all its forms. Yet, I understood that the power of choice was incredibly important. If I like you, I will interact with you; but if I ignore you, then don't continue to pursue me. Zeus could not take no for an answer. I saw him as a braggart; a loud-mouthed self-righteous animal of a man who could not handle rejection. I gave him the same warnings as I did your crew when I arrived, and one day he chose to take the form of a handmaiden and trick me into bathing naked while he was there. After I finished, he used some special chains to bind my arms from behind and violated me. I never forgave him or your people until I got to know Myosha. Thanks to her, I have progressed to open dialogues like this. I am very happy that she changed my opinion of the human race. She actually reminds me a lot of Athena: smart, level-headed, and very passionate about her beliefs. If you think there's more to that story than I am saying, then you would be correct. My behavior is still something I am not too proud of, and that is as much as I wish to share at this time."

Doctor clears her hair from her face and leans forward to capture Kreysta's attention.

"Seeing that you are a scholar, what advice can you give us in our darkest hour?"

Kreysta's expression goes from sour to even darker than before as she ponders her next words.

"Those who destroy or forget their history are doomed to repeat it. This has all happened before for your people: the wars, exodus, and eventual victory over your oppressors. Your Lords of Kobol went through this, and the people they originated from before them. Unfortunately, the level of destruction and bloodshed is unprecedented. Not many species recover from this level of warfare, and this is my final appeal to you Doneatha. Leave this place with me; abandon the vengeance in your hearts, and I promise peace and survival for your race from this Cylon species. I cannot stay here any longer. My ship is at one hundred percent, and is finalizing our departure as we dine tonight."

The admiral sits back and sighs feeling the weight of her rank finally crushing her chest. She sits there as the crew stare intently and hover on her next words. As she leans over to speak, Caleb interrupts over the speaker.

"Admiral! We have eight DRADIS contacts inbound."

Excusing herself, Doneatha exhales in relief, having dodged the burning question.

Kreysta stays sitting knowing precisely what the admiral's decision will be.

Rushing onto the bridge, the first vipers are intercepting the contacts and are howling in celebration. With the seven transports fully operational and loaded with supplies, they are escorted to the cargo ships for offloading. As she manages the flow of data, she gets the news she feared as a raptor suddenly jumps back to the fleet. Lt. Kemper is pleading over the channel to the Titanica.

"I scanned the raptor and it was still off. They missed their last three scheduled call-ins, and I returned here immediately."

As Donetha pulls away from the chatter from the transports, to confirm her worst fears. Caleb nods to her grimly. Shaking her head, she leaves the bridge and finds Kreysta sitting morosely in her seat as if she knew what Doneatha was about to tell her.

"Kreysta. Myosha's team still hasn't checked in. They are six hours overdue. I'm assembling a team of three raptors to check it out…"

The warning klaxons immediately sound, cutting off Doneatha. As she spins around to the bridge, she fails to notice Kreysta less than a step behind her. Caleb announces in a calm but stern tone.

"DRADIS contact! One Cylon basestar has just jumped in and is deploying fighters."

Nodding, Doneatha orders a carrousel formation to get the transports out of harm's way and to transition to a starburst to surround the basestar. Doneatha jumps when she discovers Kreysta hovering below her shoulder.

"Permission to recover your lost team admiral?"

Doneatha shakes her head and then nods.

"Approved. I'll send a few raptors as soon as we are clear of these toasters."

Shaking her head, Kreysta touches her collar and activates her mic.

"Bavor! We've got a hot launch! I'm going to get Myosha."

In minutes, Kreysta is scaling the ladder into her ship and jumping into the cockpit chair. Strapping herself in, she gets the all clear and Chief Gommels marshals her out of her parking bay and to the launch elevator. As the elevator lurches to a stop at the top, she receives permission to launch. In a blink of an eye, Bavor clears the bay as it begins to retract back into the Titanica. Whipping left and right dodging the streams of anti-missile and fighter fire, she finally leaves the Titanica's defense screen and penetrate the heavy fighter combat zones. Staring at the waves of fighters bearing down on the fleet, Kreysta curses under her breath.

"Activate the combat defense screens. I do not want to collide with anyone."

Leaving the protection of the fleet, she hits the second wave of Cylon fighters and flips around trying to avoid tangling with them. As she brushes by a Cylon fighter, it suddenly lurches away as if clipping a solid wall; everyone who gets within a hundred feet of Bavor are inexplicably sent careening away in a cloud of debris or simply explode. After the fifteenth Cylon is sent spinning away, she isn't surprised that they give way. Breaking into a clearing, she begins the spatial fold operation. With a minute left until the jump, she tightens her restraints and completes her checklist. As the countdown approaches the end, Bavor cancels it as he detects a massive bubble of destabilized space expanding in front of them. Looking over her console she throws all the power into the defensive screens and rockets into the center of the destabilized area.

From the bridge of the Titanica, Doneatha gasps as Kreysta's ship disappears and is replaced with a pair of Cylon basestars. With overwhelming odds stacked against her, she knows there's little she could do and stands at the helm catatonically facing the end. As she prepares for the end, the DRADIS loses track of the numbers of Cylon fighters entering the field, and the fleet begins to retract their deployment and break into a defensive circle. Doneatha eases back into her chair and prepares for the inevitable conclusion of the fight, knowing there is not enough time to spin up her FTL.

Kreysta is amazed that her shields held up to squeezing inside the Cylon ship, and even more amazed that there was a large enough space for her ship to fit. Scanning the insides, she detects the power core and locks her weapons onto it. Opening up four of the front concealed ports, she detects the first basestar's core and tracks its location through the basestar she's in. Double checking her restraints she exhales and releases the safeties on the anti-neutron cannons and fires at the third basestar. As the hull and superstructure of the basestar she's in cease to exist in the path of the four combined beams, the beams strikes the core of the faraway ship and explodes brilliantly. Spinning, she resumes her lock onto the basestar she's in and fires the cannon once before folding away.

As Doneatha tries to stem the flow of anti-ship missiles she braces against the display console as the ship rocks hideously from the explosive concussions. As her viper numbers diminish, she knows the missile locks will only become insurmountable. As Caleb screams out about a notification tone from DRADIS, she expects to be told that the fighters from the last Basestar are within range. Instead, she cannot fathom his words and yells at him to repeat them.

"I said, the two basestars are gone! They've been destroyed. I'm reading debris and the loss of at least 60 percent of their fighters from the explosions. The first basestar is recalling fighters and preparing to leave."

Standing, Doneatha barks out to her staff.

"The FRAK they are! Concentrate fire on that toaster oven and show them what happens when they pick a fight. Helm! Turn us at them at full speed! I want every weapon trained on them and not let one of them escape! Tell the fleet to use deployment plan scorpion. Go! If Kreysta's figures are right about their systems, we only have minutes before they can spin up their FTL."

As the destroyers take heavy damage from the scores of missiles and fighters, they penetrate the basestar's perimeter and gets hammered by the missile cruiser as it uses the destroyers for cover. Scoring direct hits by the Titanica and the fleet, the Cylon ship explodes brilliantly while the fleet mops up the remaining fighters.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Disrupting the tranquility of space, a fiery orb blinks into existence and remains cohesively still for several seconds until it just as suddenly bursts outwards. In moments the fires extinguish as they are stretched outwards from the center leaving behind Kreysta's ship sitting motionless in orbit around Picon.

Bursting through the morning fog, Bavor scans the area for Cylons and sets down on the outskirts of the village. After changing and slipping on a pair of boots, she retreats to the rear of the ship. Stopping at the hatch she looks around nervously and finally gazes across at a sealed panel.

"Bavor? I know I promised I would never ask this of you but…"

The panel suddenly unlocks and slides up into the wall. Bavor replies in his typical even voice.

"Kray? In this situation even I would use them. These Cylons are exactly why I keep them, and I know you would never use them frivolously. Go bring her back."

Reaching into the panel, she extracts a tiny star-shaped device and sets it in the center of her outstretched hand. She waits patiently until it starts glowing rhythmically with her own hearts. After a few seconds, the device begins tumbling and churning in her palm and amazingly begins to grow geometrically until it encompasses her entire lower arm. Resembling a gauntlet, it vibrates with energy and moves easily like a tight surgical glove. As she turns to exit, Bavor asks numbly.

"Why are you not using all five? The armor-mode would easily deflect any of their weapons."

With a weighted sigh, she begins scaling the ladder and speaks over her shoulder.

"Simply? I am not going to war against them. I am on a rescue mission, saving one individual, not assaulting a fortress or cutting through swaths of troops. You only scanned twelve of their warrior machines and one small transport hidden on a far island, so this will only be small-scale. I imagine the second human you scanned is the synthetic. If she is not safe and sound…well, you will know if she is not."

Striding into the village, she listens to Bavor guide her to the area where the Cylons lay hidden to ambush her. Using a ladder to the top of the roof, she sneaks through an access door and discovers three of the killing machines standing just inside the room looking out the window. Leveling her hand at their backs, she spreads her fingers and releases a silent burst from the glove. Like a wave through water, the ripples in the air strike them and they seem to power down and collapse to the floor. Smoke seeps from their chests and heads; and with the first group destroyed, Kreysta heads back onto the roof and leaps across adjoining rooves until she reaches the next nest of Cylons.

With no access door into the house, she finds the open window and scoops a handful of loose pebbles scattered on the roof. Leaning over the edge of the roof, she tosses one pebble into the window. Patiently she waits until she hears the warriors begin to move around to investigate the disturbance. Intently, she discerns their movements and launches the remaining pebbles onto window sill. With an evil grin she hears all three of them move to the window to investigate. Centering on the roof towards the window, she take a few steps backwards and levels the glove at their approximate location. Adjusting her finger spacing, she releases another burst of energy towards the roof, and it passes effortlessly through the wood and tar structure and strikes the Cylons. Hearing multiple crashes, she launches herself from the roof to a nearby house with a window wide open. Rolling to a stop, she stands and dusts off before using the stairs to reach the ground level.

It takes Kreysta a minute to find the back entrance to the market, especially when most of the remaining Cylons were waiting there. Extending one finger, she points at the lock. Immediately a fiery red beam shoots out from her finger and cuts around where the lock extends into the door frame. In seconds, she quietly pulls the door open, catching the wedge from the door frame in her hand as it tumbles free. After pulling the door closed behind her she runs into a pair of Cylons guarding the door to the basement. As the ones before them, she pushes out a wave of energy immobilizing and deactivating the robots. The noise from them collapsing brings the remainder towards her firing, and she sends out one last burst which abruptly ends the shootout. Receiving the all-clear from Bavor, she descends the flight of stairs and navigates the refrigerated corridors. Sensing them towards the rear, she finds Myosha stuffed in a shipping crate. As she starts to leap towards her, the synthetic human-Cylon steps out from behind a crate leveling a pistol at her lover.

"Oh! If you want her dead, please continue."

Kreysta bites back her anger.

"Leave her be. This is between us, not her."

Unlatching the cage, she kicks the cage open and orders Myosha to step out. Stiff and racked with pain, Myosha obeys the woman, only to feel her neck grabbed from behind. The painful grip causes her to lean backwards in agony. Kreysta nearly launches herself at the woman, only to be reminded of the weapon trained on Myosha.

"NO-NO! So the rumors were true, you do have a soft spot for her. Interesting. Who and what are you really?"

Looking for a better angle, Kreysta begins working around her while talking.

"I'm Kreystakavonikaloka of the Twelfth Tribe of Uberstakonk. My people are priests, warriors, explorers, scholars, and artisans. We do not seek conflict, only to avoid it. It is bad for trade and business. I am leaving this place, and all I want to do is take her away with me and never return here."

Nodding, she looks down as she holsters her weapon. As she starts to push Myosha towards her she suddenly sends her fist into Myosha's back. A grotesque cracking sound erupts and Kreysta screams out a deafening roar as Myosha collapses limp to the ground emitting a silent scream on her face. The walls vibrate erratically and the roar carries out beyond the confines of the walls and structure. Reflexively the synthetic Cylon darts for the service elevator with her hands cupping her ears, sealing the door behind her as she pants in terror.

With tears streaming from her eyes, she reaches Myosha and kneels at her side. Fearful to even touch the horrific wound, she carefully straightens out the twisted limbs she lies upon and brings her to a more natural pose on the floor. With Kreysta's body shaking uncontrollably, she cannot bring any words out of her mouth suitable for the sight.

As Myosha's conciseness wains, she struggles to breathe and whispers out her last loving thought.

"It's okay…it doesn't hurt anymore. I'm okay here. You know what? I wish I had taken you up on that trip to your place. This war crap fracking sucks. I think I'm going to take a little nap now."

Sobbing, Kreysta nods and rises to her feet. Going around the Myosha's right side, she returns to her knees and leans over. Sliding her hands over Myosha's eyes, she forces her lover to close them and keeps her hand over them. With her grip firmly across Myosgha's eyes, she open's her mouth wider than any human should and a pair of long fangs extends out from the top row of teeth. Before she sinks them into Myosha's carotid artery, she hoarsely whispers to her one last time.

"This will help you sleep my love."

With a heavy punch, she buries the fangs into the soft supple neck she had grown accustomed to kissing at every private opportunity. The sides of Kreysta's neck pulse rhythmically as she pumps venom into her lover. Myosha futilely tries to lift her body against Kreysta's hold, only to become deathly still after a few moments. Retracting her fangs, she holds Myosha's head tenderly for several minutes to ensure she completely succumbed to her venom and after licking the wounds on her neck to stop the bleeding. Setting her head on the ground, she stands and turns towards the stairs she entered from. Letting out a second rage-filled roar, she spends a minute spraying from her mouth a fine mist over her lover's body to deter scavengers, insects, and rats. With hate filling her heart, she exits the building and takes a deep draught of air. Turning towards the direction the Cylon ran, she releases a monstrous roar to let the vile creature know she is on her scent.

The Asian Cylon begins to quake in fear as the roars of the monster reach her hiding place on the beach. Screaming for the heavy raider to pick her up, she turns in time to see the ship appear on the horizon. Pacing nervously, she drops the communicator when the ship inexplicably explodes a mile away. Rising from the water, Bavor brazenly admits he is responsible for the ship's destruction and turns towards the Cylon. Running aimlessly, she glances over her shoulder as catches a glimpse of Kreysta walking her direction from the village. A deep menacing voice roars to her, making her double her pace.

"This is not over!"

After running a mile she glances back and cannot see Kreysta or her ship any longer. Slowing, she breathes deeply looking for where they might come at her. A movement high above catches her attention, and she nearly collapses in fear. Soaring down towards her, a massive beast suddenly slows its descent and lands a hundred feet from her. Covered in coarse green scales and a long tail, the beast's is easily seventy-five feet long from head to tail. With a neck only just shorter than the tail, the great winged serpent resembles the nightmares from long ago legends. Watching her scramble towards a heavy grove of trees, the dragon releases a cone fire engulfing the forest around the Cylon. The heat makes her run towards the ocean, only to see the very protective water erupt with flames from the Dragon's breath. Trapping her on the beach, it seethes at its prey. Collapsing to her knees, the synthetic Cylon grovels pointlessly as it lands yards from where she kneels. Kreysta flips her tail angrily from left to right as she speaks.

"I don't know how you came back or downloaded her previous database, but I'm going to make you truly suffer now! I have at least fourteen to thirty-six hours until anyone interrupts us. I'll teach you to leave me alone this time. I am that thing which fears no one and which everyone fears that lives in the darkness. I wander eternity and bring horror to those who make me their enemy; and you have become my enemy, child!"

On the Cylon baseship orbiting Caprica, a pair of Asian Cylons hawk over a recent arrival through downloading. As she sleeps, the two shrug as their sister is returned to full sleep-stasis.

"This is the one we were warned about a week ago. We were told she was becoming unstable and not to resurrect her. The system automatically froze her, and purged her download afterwards."

The other girl nods and turns away.

"She must have been pretty delusional to warrant this kind of isolation. It is for the best I guess."

Leaving, the pair disappears down the corridor while the woman silently suffers eternal torment reliving the horrors from her previously final twenty-one hours.

Leaving Myosha's side as the rescue shuttles circle overhead, she directs them to a clearing to land and beckons them to their downed officer. With her eyes reddened from hours of crying, she tells them how the Cylon struck her and how she believed her lover's back was severely broken. Trying to calm her, they retrieve a long stretcher and a number of kits. Knowing it was best for them to take over, Kreysta paces nervously and represses her tears as they take readings and begin assembling the back board. Even Kreysta is amazed that they are as gentle as they are getting her carefully onto the board and securing her for transport. Following them out, she jumps into her ship after Myosha s secured and leads them safely off the planet.

Siting in the medical bay, Kreysta had refused to leave Myosha's side as she laid in a coma since the team had recovered her. After two hours, the doctor brought Kreysta into her office; Kreysta stares worriedly at her unconscious partner, determined not to give up on her. Through the doctor's window, Kreysta ignores the doctor as she clears her throat making wild grasps at Kreysta's attention.

"Myosha's back is broken at key vertebrae, and her spinal cord is certainly damaged, if not severed all together. Her blood work shows an unknown substance in her system. Her body is metabolizing it and should be completely clear by tomorrow if the rate remains the same. What bit her?"

Kreysta takes a ragged breath and lets it slip out loosely.

"I did. My species have unique capabilities, and all of us have some form of venom still. The venom is as unique to us as fingerprints are to yours, both in composition and effect. For me, the venom is a powerful antiviral and antibiotic in one; and in sufficient quantities it can put species into a chemically induced coma. I knew if she moved around, she could cause further damage to herself so I took it upon myself to immobilize her. She will wake in a day or so, far better than you can imagine. Unfortunately, I cannot heal her type of damage. It is beyond my capabilities here. If I can get her to my home, my people have the technology to work miracles in less complicated species like yourselves, but that's a long way to travel for you."

A knock at the doctor's door ends the conversation and the admiral's voice asks for the doctor to give her a minute with Kreysta.

Sitting down in front of her, she notices Kreysta never takes her eyes off Myosha. Despite the differences in their species, the pain written on her face was unmistakable. After realizing she wasn't going to acknowledge her, Doneatha begins.

"I'm sorry. The doctor tells me there is little hope for her ever walking again."

Without releasing her gaze on Myosha, Kreysta speaks distantly.

"That's not why you are here, is it?"

Shaking her head, she inhales sharply.

"No. Instead I am suffocated with the realization everyone almost died two days ago, if it weren't for you."

Kreysta turns abruptly.

"I have no idea what you are talking about! I folded away before those two basestars arrived, and your sensors prove that! I would never and _can never_ get involved in a foreign war. Like it or not, we all have rules and laws we are held accountable for, no matter how far from home we are. I have no idea how those two ships blew up, and will not entertain the idea I had anything to do with that."

Defensively, Doneatha backs away and nods dramatically.

"OKAY! You had nothing to do with that. I got it. Yet I'm still racked with a decision that I find difficult to make. And I have to ask if your offer was still on the table from the previous evening? Can you help us escape this chaos for good?"

Kreysta nods and turns back to Myosha. Over her shoulder she replies.

"It is. I will deposit you in a safe area and I will walk you through the formal request for sanctuary. They will request all your historical databases be turned over, all your logs and mine, as I will be sponsoring you. This is how it has always been, and change…real change…takes time. My people have been doing it this way for millennia and it has worked. Can I offer a bit of advice? You need to ask every single person to commit to this; there can be no turning back, and no dissention on your decision. Everyone must approve it, and there can be no changing your minds afterwards. You can offer to leave behind your best ship and equipment, but I suggest taking this ship. Its fold drive is in superb condition and can be made to hold the most people possible. It will take me about a week to network my systems with yours and about a week to do the same for each of your ships you take with you. The fewer ships you take the better. I also suggest only taking one destroyer and a cargo ship. This will supply you with rudimentary defense and resupply capabilities. Finding a world to move you to will take but a few days, but the sanctuary request will takes a few weeks. Take as much food as possible; plan for six weeks total."

Doneatha mulls over her figures and nods.

"We have that right now plus another twelve months in both preserved meat and vegetables, but not in water."

Nodding Kreysta returns her gaze back on Myosha and continues.

"Water will not be an issue. We have planets of just water, but having food is essential. If you show up with those amounts of supplies, they are very open to take you in as war refugees. It will take a while to plant emergency crops, find equivalent food sources, and develop hydroponics."

Kreysta silently watches a nurse takes reading from Myosha and feels an intense pain.

"I saw several major groupings of survivors on a couple of planets I scanned. If we can grab them, and all the farm implements and seed you can scrounge while I rig your ships for the trip, you can have a serious chance for success."

Doneatha nods and begins taking notes on a nearby clip board.

"Give me a working list of things you need from me."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Settling back into a concealed orbit amongst the cloudy debris of the Lernaia Nebula, a distant arm of the Hyperion Nebula, Admiral Florus feels the sting of irony as she temporarily returns the monolithic battleship back to its former hiding place. As Kreysta led the mechanical and engineering teams to integrate a wireless fold navigation system into the bridges, a second team collects the tons of supplies from the colonies. With dozens of pages, the shopping list keeps them busy around the clock while dodging Cylon patrols. With eight vipers fitted with Cylon jump drives, they provided the kind of coverage the collectors needed to scrounge amongst the ruins of the colonies. Setting up a processing center, they screen every person to ensure not one synthetic Cylon sneaks aboard. Like so many times before, the synthetic humans attempted to infiltrate every major outcropping of human life, but their processing centers weeded out two of them.

In fifteen hours, the entire town is ready, and the all-clear is given. As they parked five of the small cargo transports from Picon to take on grain and seed, the others lands to take on just the survivors. With explicit instructions to take no clothes or belongings, they pack everyone into hundreds of seats. Designed to carry only people, they manage to recover over eight hundred workers and families before they leave Sagitaron. Traveling to the non-strategic outer parts of the colonies, they manage to recover thousands of tons of farming supplies and seed in a massive four day operation. The last day of the operation was a massive raid on the merchant docks of Canceron and Virgon. Knowing it will take years to fully rebuild the crops used to make clothing, they empty numerous warehouses of cloth and supplies. Stripping every nearby store and storage facility, they leave nothing behind. By the time the Cylons send basestars to investigate, there is nothing to find but empty warehouses and lifeless regions where people once were.

Parking in orbit around Ragnar, they finalize the security protocols by doing one final check of every person on board, plus a comprehensive search of each ship. With a destroyer protecting them and food ships arriving daily, the last survivors of the colonies were told simply that it was not safe to join the fleet at the present time. Though each of the cargo ships would dock daily with the destroyer Achilles to eat, shower and stretch, they were always under tight guard. As the days turned into two weeks, they were finally given the ultimatum Kreysta dictated. Kreysta was surprised to learn less than fifty people opted to continue the fight, and were immediately started on a training program to fill positions on the ships which were going to be left behind. Kreysta couldn't believe anyone would choose to remain behind, but understood it was not her place to question human motivations. With enough of the crew to man two ships, the Caprican Rising was chosen to join the Titanica; and Admiral Florus's pride and joy, Achilles, was selected to remain behind to offer the best chance of survival for those who remained behind. In addition to the training of ship crews, many viper pilots who chose to remain behind were retrained into bridge positions, as the mix of those who chose to stay and go were widely dispersed through the fleet.

With the wireless system nearly complete, the Titanica kept it offline while the destroyer was fitted with its upgrade. Kreysta spent every free moment assisting the crews, mostly due to the complex nature of the interface. Tying directly into the FTL system and FTL Drive, the interface allowed Bavor to directly control the entire FTL process from calculating the jump, activating the drive, and initiating the space fold. By synchronizing the fold between all three ships, Kreysta theorized the three ships could be jumped across the galaxy with the same amount of fuel as they used in a mere four light-year jump. Most of the engineers were dumfounded by the concept but the science behind Kreysta's theories were sound enough to follow along.

One of the last items Kreysta shared was a parting gift of technology to the remaining freedom fighters. Sharing the frequency bands a space-fold generates, she knew they were close to making the technology work. Unfortunately, time was not on their list of resources they possessed. Warning if the research fell into Cylon hands it would be used against them in horrible efficiency, it was perhaps their best chance in preventing a sneak attack. With little else she could provide them as they readied for departure, she gave them hope for the long road ahead. Despite her relentless schedule, Kreysta found time every day to spend at Myosha's bedside. Taking time to read to Myosha her favorite mystery author, Kreysta showed considerable relief when her lover finally woke. Complaining that her neck was considerably sore, Kreysta apologized profusely and they eventually laughed about the entire affair. With the paralysis spread from her lower back down, the doctor confirmed her fears. With the spinal cord irreparably damaged, she would be confined to a bed or special transportation devices for the rest of her life. Myosha spent the first few days crying while Kreysta comforted her, but no amount of comforting could relive her pain and anguish. The chief nurse for Myosha, a young and vibrant dark auburn-haired girl named Carmella Goth, understood Myosha's needs, having cared for her invalid mother as a child. Taking charge of her care, the nurse displayed the care and attention inordinate for most care givers in the bay.

With the pain from her injuries quenched by heavy sedatives, Myosha struggled to remain conscious for most of the time. Incapable of discerning the passage of time, she never realized that instead of hours passing, days drifted by as she lay in the infirmary. As the second week wound to an end and the interfaces were completed, Myosha woke to find Kreysta arranging a portable medical transport tube. Explaining how her ship had a storage bay which could double as a life-support bay, she received permission from Myosha to ask the admiral. Taking a few minutes to share a private moment between them, Myosha inevitably drifted back into her drug-induced slumber missing the historic space-fold.

Sending a pair of raptors and six of the modified vipers, the force arrives and spends a few minutes confirming the security protocols. Once everything was in order, they transmit the coordinates and rendezvous with the surviving fleet, and the transports enter the Titanica. Giving the two ships adequate space, the fleet turns and waits for the countdown. The last transport enters the Titanica as Kreysta positions her ship between the two massive battleships. Barely the size of three of their vipers, Bavor guides the ships to within fifty meters of each other. Dangerously close to the two leviathans, Bavor pulls in between them and begins the countdown. As twenty minutes tick down, the Titanica begins to groan as the drive amps up to full strength. As reports come in of similar effects from the destroyer, Doneatha gives the all-clear and signals to continue.

Sitting in her cockpit, Kreysta's eyes drift over to the empty chair beside her and she fights the gnawing pain of Myosha's absence. A flash from the sensors makes her enlarge the screen and sigh. Bringing up the bridge of the Achilles, she addresses the newly promoted Admiral Hemic.

"Admiral! You have three basestars inbound in five minutes. It is best that you get your fleet out of here now! I have your people, and we will be gone in less than a minute. Start pulling out."

She can hear the weight in his voice as he acknowledges her words. As she sends the destination coordinates to the FTL computers, Hemic's fleet begin jumping away, disappearing one ship at time. Deciding to stay behind until his beloved friends and crew are safely away, Admiral Hemic is the last person to see the Battlestar Titanica, Destroyer Caprican Rising, and the mysterious green ship ever again. In a singular massive globular orb of light, the three ships are enveloped and are lost from sight. When the orb finally winks of existence, there is nothing left behind. Glancing over the area, he solemnly gives the word and joins the remaining fleet in their war to regain the twelve colonies.

With a heavy lurch, Admiral Florus's fleet is thrown into a patch of clear space and assesses their precise location. As they struggle to clarify the coordinates, Kreysta comes over the channel in a reassuring tone.

"Welcome everyone to the Uborkon Confederacy. The ships which are approaching are very touchy when it comes to unscheduled visitors, so let me talk to them, and DO NOT do anything rash or aggressive. My people have no qualms shooting first and asking questions later for uninvited guests. Ah! They are calling me. Hold here and do nothing."

With nothing to say or do, Doneatha shrugs and waits. Hours pass quietly as the four gigantic twenty-five thousand meter long leviathans surround the fleet. With none of the gargantuan ships having any similarities between them aside their immense size, the vessel facing off the Titanica resembled an ancient arrow head with a cone shape extending out the back end. After four hours, Kreysta disappears inside an acorn-shaped vessel to the right of Titanica. By the time dinner was served, Doneatha answered a summons to the bridge by the lead ship. As she cues Ensign Hopper to put them on, a shimmering blob of light suddenly appears in the center of the bridge and takes a humanoid shape. With no discernable face or identifiable attributes, it suddenly spins towards Doneatha and begins speaking in a tongue she understands.

"Doneatha Florus, leader of your Human species, you will now submit to a records review for your application to file for war refugee status."

With no apparent choice Doneatha nods.

"Sure, whatever you need. Do you want us to…"

She's cut short as the interface Kreysta installed comes to life and begins sending their flight and military logs wirelessly to the alien ships surrounding them. Shaking her head incredulously remembering how Kreysta assured her that the device didn't have any connections to their primary computers, she sits back and lets the files go unhindered. In five minutes, their entire history and logs are sent and the connection goes dead once again. As she contemplates how long it will take them to review them, she jumps when the humanoid-shaped light reappears and speaks.

"The review is complete."

Doneatha hangs on her seat as a dramatic pauses appears, leaving her breathless.

"My deepest condolences for what you people have endured, as we once faced a similar threat. Kreysta has sufficiently briefed you on our expectations for your status; and after extensive deliberation, we have concluded with a majority vote that your petition is both valid and granted. Welcome to your new haven and refuge. In the next eight cycles we will determine the best location for you to inhabit and a trained diplomat will be assigned as your representative to the galactic counsel. Once again, we welcome you to your new home Humans. Our ships will now take you to a safe harbor for you to park and repair your vessels."

Donetha can only continue to nod dumbly as they are forcibly space-folded gently to a new location. Hardly noticing the transition through space, the DRADIS identifies a singular planet with a small moon nearby, but no other worlds. As they try and calculate the jump, Kreysta comes over the line requesting permission to board. With little thought, Admiral Florus agrees and continues with their operations. With sufficient food reserves, they prepare themselves for the extensive wait Kreysta warned of, and park themselves in a healthy orbit near the moon. As she expected, Kreysta suddenly appeared outside the bridge, waiting in the dining room. As she leaves the operations to Caleb to manage, she smiles warmly seeing the green-tinged woman sitting at the table enjoying a glass of water. Kreysta returns the smile, and begins speaking.

"It didn't take much convincing on my part to get the approval. You did a superb job organizing your files and they found everything I told them about in just seconds. They were trying to convince me to assume the role as your delegate and representative, but I refused. They eventually decided on an old friend of mine from my youth, Breminon. He has a pleasant disposition, small ego, and most important characteristic in dealings with Humans: a healthy sense of humor. He loves comedy and all the complex emotions which come with it. You have no idea how stuffy my people can be. He's very fair minded and loves interaction with different species. He will make a great ally for your people as long as you treat him as respectfully as you treated me."

Doneatha graciously bows.

"I will undoubtedly learn quite a bit as I transition from military leader to the leader of the Human race. We plan to start a political system of democratic elections and key management offices."

Shaking her head, Kreysta chuckles while she tries to reply.

"Listen. Can I give you some free advice? Take it easy on the democracy in the beginning. You have a great many tasks to complete which will not be very pleasurable. Give the new republic thing a chance to grow after a few years. They will need a strong force of direction and leadership to get your people through the hard times ahead. After ten years, if you still feel it's necessary, then give it a go. I've seen democracies come and go, and it is best to just to keep it on the back burner, as your people say."

Laughing, Doenatha nods approvingly.

"Sure. We will keep that in mind. You're leaving then?"

Nodding, Kreysta stands and approaches the admiral.

"Yes, but I request permission to take Myosha. My people possess some remarkable technology to heal injuries, and they have even impressed me from time to time. They have given me authorization to take her to the Great Forge Research Hospital, and now I would like yours. I offer no guarantees nor can anyone truly know if we can effectively repair the Human body, but I believe there is a good chance. Besides, it will give my people a chance to investigate how your species works and that equates to a heightened understanding of you; or at least that's what the elders tell us."

Kreysta laughs hysterically, yet Doneatha completely misses the comedy and just smiles.

"They provided me a transportation pod for her, something I didn't expect honestly. I do not think we will be heading your way anytime soon; but if Myosha wishes it, I will always return her to you."

Nodding, Doneatha sighs abruptly.

"Please can you at least stop by and let us know if they were successful or not? I would like to know either way."

After a moment, Kreysta nods.

"That is probably what Myosha would want as well. You got it. I will ensure that you know how the process goes. It may take some considerable time though. We first have to figure out what makes her tick, and then we can deconstruct the injury. And that is the simplified version of what they do. They also do viral research and my people will request to have a medical research center on your world to study your species. Please seriously consider allowing them to do so. Many species become isolationists after the trauma of war, just try and not go down that road."

Understandingly, Doneatha nods and cracks a large smile.

"That is a really good idea. I'm sure I can sell that to the people."

After a brief hug, Admiral Florus walks Kreysta to the medical bay and to Myosha's bed. Groggily, she wakes long enough to smile at the pair and speak.

"Hey…how did that big space jump go?"

The admiral smiles and rubs Myosha's hand.

"Well, we're here, everyone who wanted to at least. Kreysta wants to take you to her people and see if they can help you. Are you up for that trip? She tells me that they'll be poking and prodding you to figure out what makes you tick first, but they could do more than what we can do here."

Myosha glances around and finally her eyes come to rest on Kreysta. Unsheathing a huge smile, she finally replies.

"Yah. I'm no good to anyone laid up in bed for the rest of my life, so I'm willing to take that chance."

She blinks tiredly as a large white tubular pod silently hovers beside the bed. Kreysta speaks to the pod in her language for a minute and then turns to everyone.

"I just told it the nature of her injuries and it is formulating the best means of transporting her safely."

Seconds tick by until the pod finally splits in half along the horizon and reveals a white tongue-like appendage extend out from inside. Thinning as it approaches, it gently slides underneath Myosha and lifts her off the bed and into the pod. Myosha is surprised by the lack of pain she feels as she's moved from her bed to the pod. As the tongue reforms underneath her into a comfortable shape and form, she cannot fight the sleepiness coming over her. Kreysta leans over the lip of the pod and steals a kiss from Myosha.

"This pod is going to put you asleep for the trip. When you wake, we will be at the hospital."

Nodding, Myosha relaxes completely and the pod slowly closes tight leaving behind no discernable door or seam. As Kreysta turns to go, Doctor Strom steps in front of her, insistently wishing to speak. With a nod, Kreysta motions for her to speak.

"My youngest nurse, Carmella, has expressed an overwhelming desire to accompany you. I have to admit, there is some viable reasons to take her, mostly as a willing test subject. You'll need a good source of study to make predictions for Myosha's treatment. Second, she's willing to learn anything you teach her in the medical field. If we can understand you, we will be more accepting of foreign species. And lastly, I need to take advantage of any chance to improve our health care methods and techniques. We're not perfect yet, so if she can bring back some knowledge from watching your people work, maybe we can figure out how to apply it at our reduced technological level."

Kreysta shakes her head in disbelief. Motioning for the nurse to approach, she intentionally penetrates her per personal space to make her uncomfortable. With little reaction, Kreysta pulls back and asks forcibly.

"You do realize that when I bring you back it may be decades from now. Any hopes of a family or personal life are banished! Are you prepared for this level of commitment?"

With a heavy nod, she replies.

"I have spent my life committed to caring for people. Studying true alien species and concepts is everything I dreamed about. Please don't deny me my dreams."

Kreysta looks down at Myosha already fast asleep in the pod. Uncomfortably Kreysta shifts around in place before shaking her head.

"You do realize that dreams can become nightmares? My ship leaves ten minutes after I get there. If you're not there, I'm not waiting."

As Admiral Florus escorts the pair down to the ship, Carmella sprints to her bunk and throws all her belongings into a duffle bag. Just as the pod is safely secured inside Bavor, Kreysta shakes her head as she looks up to find Carmella standing in a flight suit and a duffle bag by her feet. With a deep sigh, she motions to carry her bag up the ladder. After finalizing her exterior pre-flight checks, she enters the ship to find Carmella standing at the back of the ship. Opening a storage locker, she shows her where to stow her bag and leads her to the cockpit. Gruffly, Kreysta tells her not to touch a thing and get strapped into her chair beside her. Obediently, she complies and sits back quietly. With guilt nipping at her soul, Kreysta reaches into the center compartment and hands goggles to Carmella.

"Still don't touch anything…but at least you can see what is going on around you."

Nodding she takes the glasses and her jaw drops in awe as they catapult away. All she utters is a bewildered gasp as they accelerate past the speed of light.

**Epilogue**

Myosha's brilliant hazel eyes flutter open and she slams them painfully shut from the light of the room. When she pries them open again, the lights are significantly dimmed and she can discern two women in the room. As she shuffles naked under the covers, she smiles seeing Kreysta rise and rush to her side. After attacking her with a passionate kiss, she realizes she's sitting up on her own. Gently shoving Kreysta away, she looks down at her once non-functional limbs in amazement and cannot help to act overwhelmed. Stretching and flexing her legs, she gingerly rubs her back and discerns countless nubs from scars and needles.

"Those will heal up in time; we only just finished cracking your genetic coding."

Kreysta turns as Carmella arrives at the bed and offers a glass of clear juice. The young woman looked only a couple of years older than she remembered.

"They discovered we were a bit more complicated than they ever imagined, and it took decades to unravel the healing and regeneration dynamics of the human body. We want to run some more tests, but it seems the process was far more successful than we thought. It's only been a month since the procedure and you're already awake and moving on your own. Care to try and walk?"

Looking down at her lack of clothes she looks around and shrugs.

"I guess it's nothing you two haven't already seen, right?"

With a comical grin, Carmella reaches her side and the two of them steady her as she rises. Far easier than they imagined, Myosha quivers slightly as she takes her first steps and manages five shaky steps before collapsing into the arms of her protectors. Led back to bed, she sits for a few minutes before accepting a robe to cover up with. Carmella gently reassures her patient.

"This will take some time. It's nothing you can rush."

After weeks of physical therapy and so many tests that she lost count, she was finally getting around on her own with a walker. As the months swing by, she graduates to a simple cane, to finally long distance runs. After a year from her wakening, she was finally released from the hospital and Carmella was prepared to rejoin her people on their new world Krybesha. Named after the world their ancestors came from and their saviors, Krybesha offered abundant lands and seas to feed and house the thousands of survivors.

Arriving in midafternoon at the capitol, the trio is met by a fanfare of media and guests alike. Introduced to scores of military and civilian leaders, she politely nods and shakes hands as do the rest of her travelers. As Carmella leads the discussions, she finally arranges the dinner with the elder dignitaries and tribe leaders. With mining operations restricted to off-world and surrounding planets, the key resources were finally coming in sufficiently to allow for limited starship construction. Though the Titanica and its sister destroyer were ever vigilant in orbit, they dreamed of better ships to travel to the space-lanes and to promote commerce. Bombarded with attention, they take it in stride and bear it. It was on their last evening before Myosha and Kreysta were set to leave when a frail old woman arrived at their table. Using the arm of a chivalrous young man in uniform, she stops at their table stares quietly. Kreysta kicks Myosha underneath the table to get her attention. Stopping to stare, Kreysta begins grinning as she recognizes the elderly woman. Shaking her head, Myosha struggles to place the face. Kreysta just shakes her head at Myosha.

"Are you still Admiral or did they make you some other higher rank?"

Shrugging, she takes a seat in front of Myosha before speaking.

"I've received numerous titles since then: Grand Admiral, Chancellor, High Chancellor, and I even had a city named after me. I heard they were considering naming a city after you too Kreysta. To no one's surprise they are still locked in debate. I understand now why you asked me to hold off on a democratic republic. The majority of orders I had to give would have been impossible if left up to debate and democratic procedures."

From across the table Myosha mouths Admiral Florus's name. She smiles seeing Myosha's memory return. She turns to Kreysta and continues.

"When you said a decade or so, I thought twenty or thirty years tops, not fifty eight!"

Carmela sighs dramatically.

"It was far more complicated than even our hosts believed. You have no idea how many tests they ran on me over that time too."

Leaning over the table she whispers to the trio.

"No offence, but you three look far better than anyone from the old days, especially me."

Kreysta leans into the aged leader.

"To be entirely honest and up front, we had to extend Carmella's age, or rather slow it down. Now she's got nearly sixty of your years of interspecies medical knowledge in that skull of hers, and she has at least twice that left in her before she has to retire. We know a few races who dabbled in the art of age reduction, and we share knowledge. The Famori are a young but gifted race at the outer regions of our territory. Though they aren't an active member, we talk to them from time to time. It's not just what you know in the universe, but who."

Leaning back, Doneatha looks around the table once more and begins to stand.

"So you're not coming home for good, are you?"

Myosha shakes her head no.

"I've spent over fifty years asleep and I'm not spending another minute tied down to one place. I can walk again, which is a miracle in itself. I can't disregard the gift I was given, and I have to live my life free and clear of my past. Kreysta knows a few areas which have never been explored or visited by any species. I think I want to spend how much time I have left with her."

With an understanding nod, the aged leader and diplomat rises and bids her friends one final farewell before visiting the few of her old crew still be around. Leaving Carmella to head up the medical research division, Kreysta and Myosha board Bavor and leave the new world.

Kreysta turns to Myosha as they climb into the cockpit.

"Failed to mention they extended your age as well. Any particular reason?"

Myosha can only shrug before replying.

"What's the point? Even you said it was experimental. With my system constantly regenerating, there's no telling how long I'll be around, right?"

Reaching out to her companion, Kreysta squeezes her hand and lifts away from the landing pad. As they pass beyond the borders of Krybesha, they space-fold to the outer reaches of known space, never once returning to Krybesha in their lifetimes.


End file.
